Change feels inevitable as Liberty enter offseason of uncertainty

Even in the midst of a heartbreaking end to the 2025 season, Breanna Stewart didn’t think twice Friday night when asked about her plans for next year. 

She dramatically whipped her head to look at Sabrina Ionescu, who sat across the podium after the Liberty loss in Phoenix, before pledging, “Well, I’m coming back.” 

Ionescu locked eyes with Stewart. She nodded her head ever so slightly, almost like the two telepathically signed a nonverbal pact before turning forward to express her shared desire to do the same. 

The Liberty’s 2024 title defense went down in flames in the first round, when they were outmuscled by a tough Mercury team. 

It’s a pill that went down like a bowling ball. This wasn’t at all how they imagined the ending to this chapter of the franchise. New York, which started the season with nine straight wins, dropped to fifth place late in the season with the team beset by injuries. 

While the team stole Game 1 in Phoenix, the Liberty suffered an embarrassing meltdown in front of their fans in Brooklyn. 

On Friday, Stewart, playing on a sprained MCL, did her best to will the Liberty to a victory — scoring all 14 of the Liberty’s fourth-quarter points. But it wasn’t enough as her teammates went 0-for-9 from the field over the final 10 minutes and fell 79-73. 

“We’re all disappointed,” Leonie Fiebich said. “We’re all sad. We all didn’t expect this season to go like this, to end like this. And it’s really frustrating.” 

The loss pushed the Liberty into an offseason of uncertainty, with an unsettled collective bargaining agreement, two expansion drafts with the formats to be determined by the CBA and a free agency bonanza looming. 

Change feels inevitable to some degree. The wounds are far too fresh to know for certain yet whether that change happens at the top with Sandy Brondello or among the pool of reserves. 

Ionescu called this team “really special,” but the Liberty are in the business of winning and they weren’t nearly as lethal as anticipated. 

“We all know the team never looks the same every single year,” Ionescu said. “I think we understand our core players, the players who are committed to wanting to be here and through the good and the bad. You know you can’t just want to be a part of it when you’re on top and enjoying a parade and popping champagne bottles, like you have to be able to continue to commit and want to be the best for this organization.” 

What’s best for the organization is a question general manager Jonathan Kolb will have to grapple with over the coming days, weeks and months. 

Jonquel Jones was vital in last year’s championship success and a pillar of the Liberty’s big three. But the 2024 WNBA Finals MVP missed a month of the season with a sprained ankle this season and ran out of steam down the stretch. 

Jones averaged 6.1 points over the final eight games, including the three playoff contests. She combined for only 17 points in the first round. 

Her defense on Alyssa Thomas and rebounding were no doubt important. But she wasn’t the “playoff JJ” the Liberty needed her to be. She took ownership of that when discussing Brondello’s future. 

“We can all look at people to point and blame, like, you can look at me with three points tonight and point the finger at me,” she said. 

But Jones wants to run it back in 2026. 

“We know that our team and the people that we put in our locker room and the chemistry, the foundation of what we want our core to be is here to stay,” she said. “And we love New York. And we want to be able to win more championships.” 

The Liberty should have Betnijah Laney-Hamilton back after she missed this season rehabbing from knee surgery. Fiebich has two years left on her rookie deal and Nyara Sabally has one. 

Marine Johannès, who fell out of the rotation in recent weeks, and Rebekah Garnder are reserved free agents this offseason, meaning the Liberty have exclusive negotiating rights with them. New York also has other prospects in the pipeline. 

Natasha Cloud, Isabelle Harrison, Kennedy Burke, Emma Meesseman and Stephanie Talbot join Jones, Stewart and Ionescu as unrestricted free agents. 

Ionescu said she’s honored to share the court with Stewart and appeared committed to play with the two-time league MVP for the long haul. 

“There isn’t a player who I would admire more and would love to play alongside for the rest of my career [than] Stewie,” Ionescu said, “because of how she comes out every single day for practices, for games, for anything that she takes kind of head on, she owns it, and she’s the best for a reason.” 

Fiebich said late Friday night that it would be easy to “drop into the negativity right now and think everything’s bad.” 

But she knows the future is bright. 

“I feel like with a little bit of time, we will appreciate the lessons we learned [this] season,” she said. “Of course, I would love to run it back and I don’t want the season to end like this ever.” 

This year was a reminder that a team can have all the talent in the world but it sometimes doesn’t come together the way it’s supposed to. 

The injuries — none of which were season-ending — resulted in the Liberty plugging holes until players were deemed healthy. But the changing roles and lack of lineup continuity proved costly. 

“You got to cherish those years where everything seems to be going well, like, you’re healthy, you got the players out there and this year just wasn’t our year with that, and that’s something out of our control,” Fiebich said. “We can sleep at night, knowing that we did everything we could with the opportunities that we had. It just didn’t fall our way with injuries.”