Tari Phillips Enters Liberty Ring of Honor
BROOKLYN — No. 24 gave so much more for the New York Liberty and those metropolitan accomplishments were recognized over the weekend.
Tari Phillips became a fateful eight for the Liberty on Sunday, as she was enshrined into the team's Ring of Honor during halftime of Sunday's game against the Minnesota Lynx at Barclays Center.
View the full ceremony below:
Tari Phillips Ring of Honor Induction #WNBA #LightItUpNYL https://t.co/dRNMwRpcTK
— Geoff Magliocchetti (@GeoffJMags) August 10, 2025
"I'd like to thank God for this opportunity," Phillips said. "First for life, and then being able to be here today. I'd like to thank my family, my mother and father John and Doris Phillips that have gone one. But their love and support has kind of made me who I am today. I'd like to thank ... all my peeps here that came to support me today."
"Most importantly, I'd like to thank the fans. You loved me, you accepted me here, and I think you for that. I thank you for all the times you've been here and I love you guys for that."
The intermission ceremony brought back most of the prior Ring entrants to the city including Kym Hampton, Crystal Robinson, and Sue Wicks, while Rebecca Lobo called the game for ABC. The Ring of Honor is displayed on circular LED video boards at Barclays Center during Liberty games, below the team banners Phillips and other Liberty legends have obtained since the franchise's inception in 1997.
Several other names from the Liberty's Madison Square Garden heyday were also on hand as the Liberty celebrated "Legends Weekend" against the team the current edition defeated for the first postseason championship in franchise history last fall.
That five-game win against the Lynx helped complete what Phillips and her teammates started. Phillips was part of two Finals runs in 2000 and 2002, part of an accomplished five-year metropolitan output (2000-04) that also featured four All-Star Game invites and the WNBA's first-ever Most Improved Player title in 2000 (fellow Liberty MIP winners Janel McCarville and Kia Vaughn were among the legends contingent).
To this day, Phillips' name continues to linger near the top of several major statistical categories in the Liberty record books despite her last seafoam showings being staged in 2004.
In a ceremony hosted by Liberty sideline reporter Tina Cervasio, Phillips was offered keepsakes of her induction by team chief executive officer Keia Clarke and co-owner Clara Wu Tsai. An emotional Phillips worked through her speech with the encouragement of the 17,343 gathered at Barclays Center.
"I'd like to also give a special thanks to all the other legends," Phillips continued. "All the other ones I loved and played with, played against. I would like to send a message out there: this is for all the women's sports that are out there right now. We can do it. We are more than conquerors in here. I'd like to impress upon everybody to work as hard as you can, love the people around you, love what you do most importantly, and love God."
Geoff Magliocchetti is a veteran sportswriter who contributes to a variety of sites on the "On SI" network. In addition to the Yankees/Mets, Geoff also covers the New York Knicks, New York Liberty, and New York Giants and has previously written about the New York Jets, Buffalo Bills, Staten Island Yankees, and NASCAR.