Liberty Stars Ready to Answer Olympic Call

UNCASVILLE-It's perhaps only appropriate for Liberty to lead the way fro Team USA.

Two New York Liberty stars appeared on a reported list of American stars set to rep the country in the women's basketball tournament at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. The list complied by Shams Charania of The Athletic is partly headlined by Sabrina Ionescu and Breanna Stewart, a major part of the Liberty's assembly of All-Stars put together last year.

While Ionescu and Stewart couldn't make official comments in light of the unconfirmed nature of the roster, each views the potential Parisian invite as an honor, offering what they could as they prepared for a Saturday matinee against the Connecticut Sun (1 p.m ET, ABC).

"It would mean the world," Ionescu said. "It's been something that I've wanted to do ever since I was a little girl. I understand that I would be able to have the opportunity to go out and compete with the best in the world, go out there, and fight for another gold medal."

"It'd be my journey coming full circle and knowing that I put a lot of work in and I deserved it. I worked really hard to be able to get myself in a position to make it. You don't just hand out a spot on the team. You have to go out and earn it. To kind of know that I put in the work, grew through the amount of adversity I faced early on in my career, that I stuck with it, it would mean a lot."

While Ionescu would be making her first Olympic visit, Stewart would have a shot at her third gold medal. She was previously the MVP of the most recent Olympic women's basketball competition in Tokyo back in 2021 as a member of the Seattle Storm.

"To possibly be going to another Olympics is a dream come true," Stewart said. "I really just love representing my country and an opportunity to win another gold medal."

Team USA is situated in Group C of the competition, set to take on Belgium, Germany, and Japan between July 29 and Aug. 4. The Americans are going for their eighth straight gold, having downed host Japan during the 2021 Games in Tokyo.

In the meantime, Ionescu, Stewart, and the rest of the Liberty have some major business to take care of on the domestic level: New York's bid to protect its Commissioner's Cup will enjoy a major surge forward with a weekend sweet, as they'll face the undefeated Sun on Saturday before returning home to face the Washington Mystics at Barclays Center for Sunday afternoon.

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