WNBA's New Schedule Could Be Liberty's Salvation
It's been a hard day's night and the New York Liberty, like their former canine mascot Maddie before them, has been working like a dog.
The WNBA's expanded schedule, which features each of its 13 teams playing a record 44 games, is indicative of the league's summiting popularity brought about by happenings like the Liberty's metropolitan title run and the entries of prime collegiate talent like Caitlin Clark.
Side effects, however, are already apparent: the 44 games are stacked between mid-May and early September, which have created more prevalent cases of back-to-backs and compacted travel schedules. The All-Star break was one in name only for some of the Association's finest: the main event was held on July 19 and teams were back in action less than 72 hours later.
"We constantly talk about the expectation of players to come out here every single every single night I played in this league 10 years," guard Natasha Cloud said earlier this summer. "We started with 35 [games], we jump to 44 [but] we have not extended the time of our season yet. So I think this needs to be a really clear discussion with going into CBA negotiations. We want our best athletes at an elite level every single night when they get on the floor, and so our schedule has to start f***ing going with that too."
The time for discussing the inflated schedule will come later, with Cloud, of course, hinting that it'd almost be inevitable during the coming collective bargaining agreement discussions.
In the meantime, it could prove to provide metropolitan salvation as it gears up for the meaty part of its championship defense.
The Liberty (22-15) is in a precarious spot as September looms: injuries and inconsistency has rendered a 9-0 start a distant memory and they've fallen to fifth on the WNBA leaderboard, which would make them visitors in a first-round playoff series. There's time to make it right: they're only two games behind second-place Atlanta entering this week with seven contests left on their docket, beginning with Monday's visit from the Connecticut Sun (7 p.m. ET, My9).
That's how New York could use what's been a bit of a burden on the WNBA landscape into its secret weapon: seven more opportunities to make things right may make the difference between a legitimate defense of the franchise's first postseason trophy hoist and a disappointing sequel.
"We're glad we have a bunch more games to go before we hit the playoffs," assistant coach Sonia Raman said at the start of the final decade. "I think there's a lot of work for us to accomplish in this short amount of time, and so we're certainly welcoming that aspect of it. That's the silver lining of this condensed schedule, for sure."
New York is hosting one of the more unique championship defense in quite some time: these seven games will allow them to heal up: major contributors like Jonquel Jones and Breanna Stewart have already missed at least 10 games while depth stars like Isabelle Harrison and Nyara Sabally have been equally sidelined.
Cloud, Sabrina Ionescu, and more have all had absences peppered in to the point where Marine Johannes is the only New Yorker to appear in all 37 games to date. The Liberty has played just one game this season where its full contingent (save for the year-long ailment of Betnijah Laney-Hamilton) is available, and that was in the victorious season opener back in mid-May.
New York has long acknowledged, however, that no one will fell sorry for it despite the myriad of injuries. Notable long-time injuries abroad include Clark, Sophie Cunningham, Arike Ogunbowale, and Brooklyn sixth woman-turned-Golden State All-Star Kayla Thornton.
The Liberty has never been one to lean on their, on rare occasion, literal crutches, as they've assumed responsibility for dire happenings such as careless turnovers and an offensive rebounding margin of minus-47 over their last nine games. Still, there's a lingering sense of hope that friendly faces will yield a greater result.
The injury report for Monday's game hints at long-sought relief: though Sabally is still out and Cloud was labeled questionable with a nose injury, Harrison and Stewart finally have a designation other than "out" (questionable) for the first time in about two weeks while Ionescu could return from a one-game absence for a foot issue.
The Liberty knows that such re-entries are not a magic wand for instant re-contention and then comes the issues of new combinations late in the year: New York wasn't one for in-season acquisitions that weren't on the roster in recent seasons but the team came together to approve of the signings of Emma Meesseman and Stephanie Talbot, knowing they would part of the proverbial "need" that's part of the team mantra.
"Every game that we play together as a group will help us to build our chemistry on offense and defense and for later, for the playoffs," Leonie Fiebich, no stranger to massive schedules as an international talent, said. "So I think every game will help us."
"We're still staying together, and that's the most important thing," noted head coach Sandy Brondello after a 78-62 defeat to the Atlanta Dream on Saturday. "We're on the struggle bus, we know that, but we're getting some really good players back. We know we It doesn't mean things will just automatically change. We have to bring the appropriate effort and energy and trust and talk and everything and be connected."
Mixing the old with the new in time for a runback to further glory is another way the team plans on embracing the WNBA's latest hardship.
"The more time that you spend together, that's how you learn," Brondello said in indirect thanks for the expanded slate. "We don't have any time with training, so you have to learn by doing, watching film, and then do it again, and then keep reflecting, resetting, do it again ... With Emma coming in and with all our injuries, we kind of just threw her into the fire, and that's the best thing you see, is that it she looks like she's been playing with us way longer than the short time she's been with us."
"Hopefully we'll just keep adding the players when they come back and then we have to work out how it all looks together. But that that excites us," Brondello continued. "We like our full roster, and hopefully we can finally get healthy, because we haven't had it since game one."
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.