Pick and Roll: Liberty trio aims to make history

Welcome back to Pick and Roll, powered by FanDuel.   

Join me and TSN.ca’s Brianne Spiker as we highlight everything you need to know about WNBA storylines as the season continues. 

This week, we’re heading to the Big Apple to take a bite out of the New York Liberty and their chances of winning a WNBA Championship for the first time in franchise history. 

THE TEAM TO BEAT 

The Liberty has been slated as one of the teams to beat all season after opening the year with championship odds of +300. 

New York reached the WNBA Finals last year, losing to the Las Vegas Aces in four games. While their push for a title came up short, the Liberty won a postseason round for the first time in seven years. 

After middling for half a decade, New York pushed all of their chips into the middle of the table last year by signing Breanna Stewart and trading the sixth overall pick and three players away in a three-team deal that saw them land Jonquel Jones. 

Adding Jones and Stewart to play alongside Sabrina Ionescu gave New York one of the best trios in the league. 

The three found instant success, as the team's .800 winning percentage was the best in any regular season in franchise history. 

Jones and the Liberty have been even better in 2024, with Jones averaging 3.5 more points, 1.5 more assists, and 0.8 more rebounds per game, while the team currently has a .833 win percentage. 

The Liberty have been nearly unbeatable at home since putting this roster together, with a combined 31-7 record at the Barclays Center. Only one other team in the league has won at least 30 games at home over the last two years (Aces 30-8) 

With just four games left in the season, New York holds a three-game lead for the No. 1 seed in the league, meaning there is a very good chance the road to a WNBA Championship will have to go through New York. 

PLAYER TO WATCH 

She was mentioned earlier, but we have to take a moment to circle back and talk about Stewart. 

Since her first game with Seattle, the 2016 Rookie of the Year has been one of the best players in the league. 

Stewart finished sixth in MVP voting as a rookie and was named most valuable player for the first time after just her third season in 2018.

The 2023 season, her first with the Liberty, saw her post career highs in points and assists, while her 9.3 rebounds per game nearly matched the 9.6 of her best season in 2021.

Stewart became the eighth woman in league history last year to win multiple MVPs when she narrowly beat out Alyssa Thomas and A’ja Wilson in the voting.

This season, Stewart’s counting stats have declined slightly this season, but she is still fourth in the league in points and fifth in steals per game, and she remains inside the top 10 for rebounds.

She is the only player in the league with shorter odds than Wilson to win WNBA Finals MVP at +320.

Spiker’s Take 

The Liberty have hummed along nicely this season as they look to avenge last year's finals loss to the Aces, and Sabrina Ionescu is a big reason why.

Ionescu is netting a career-high 19.1 points per game, second only to Stewart on the team. Interestingly she is doing this despite shooting 10 per cent worse from three this season at 34.1, down from last year's absurd mark of 44.8 and her field goal percentage this season is the second-worst mark of her career at 40.8.

The major additions of Stewart, Jonquel Jones and Courtney Vandersloot last season changed the complexion of the Liberty and how Ionescu was used. She was no longer the primary threat (Stewart) and was not expected to be the main playmaker either (Vandersloot). Her stats took a slight hit as a result, but her assist rate is notably back up to 6.1 after a dip to 5.4 last season.

Instead, Ionescu has continued to evolve her game, becoming more of a threat as a ball-handler and added strength has made her harder to play against and easier for her to impose her will on both sides of the ball.

Ionescu will be scrutinized in this year's playoffs to see if she has what it takes to elevate her game in crunch time. In last year's playoffs, she was just fourth on the Liberty with 13.7 points through 10 games and is more remembered for puking into a garbage can during Game 4 of the Finals, where clinched the Aces their second straight title.

As one of the more hyped first-overall picks in recent memory, Ionescu has always had the goods and has taken another step forward this season. Now I want to see her have the defining superstar game in the finals to cement her basketball legacy.

Betting Markets 

New York also has three of the current five favourites to win WNBA Finals MVP with Stewart, Ionescu (+550) and Jones (+1200)