Admit that going into game 5 I'd hoped the team would win. However, the truth be told, in part due to very questionable officiating, the win was not tainted. More to the point, rather than having been seen celebrating after the game ended, Ionescu should have been hiding in deep embarrassment, having shot 1/19, or a bit more than 5%. Good grief, any number of top women's college basketball players would have performed much better. Also, while the Liberty clearly won't do so, she should be traded, perhaps to position for a some high draft choices. As a player, she has more liabilities than she does assets. As for Stewart, as good as she's been in the WBNA, that was the second game in a row of terrible shooting percentage. read more

Wow, I can't believe there hasn't been a review of the New York Liberty (NYL) for a decade. "It [the drought of reviews] ends today." -- Neo in "The Matrix: Revolutions." Hopefully, too, the lack of even a single championships during the franchise's entire existence. The NYL, like a lot of New York basketball franchises (cough, Brooklyn Nets, New York Knicks), has until recently been on hard times. It wasn't always that way. The NYL started auspiciously as one of the marquee franchises of the WNBA, whose first game was between NYL and the Los Angeles Sparks in 1997, following the United States National Women's Basketball Team's unreal showing at the Olympics and a year-long string of global exhibition matches where they went entirely undefeated (60-0). Source: Sara Corbett, Venus to the Hoop: A Gold Medal Year in Women's Basketball (New York: Anchor Books, 1998). But after a few terrific seasons featuring Hall of Famers Rebecca Lobo, Becky Hammon, and Theresa "T-Spoon" Weatherspoon -- and repeat finals appearances that kept ending in heartbreak -- the franchise sort of ended up in two-decades of purgatory. Two low points: hiring sexual harasser Isiah Thomas as team president and getting banished from Madison Square Garden to the "Westchester County Center" (what?!?!), almost an hour away from NYC and inaccessible to most. It looked like the Liberty were on their way to become a perpetual basement team and dysfunctional, to boot, under the ownershp of legendarily incompetent James Dolan, to whom the New York Knicks also belong (no championship since 1973). Then a white knight came along. Imagine a minotaur (half man, half horse). the horse looks like he'd have no trouble winning the Kentucky Derby by at least a minute and the "man" looks like a chiseled statue: chiseled pectoral muscles, a six-, no, let's make it an eight-pack. That white knight-minotaur is JOE TSAI, CEO of global tech conglomerate Alibaba. He buys the team. He fires Isiah Thomas. And he instantly injects professionalism and INVESTMENT, resulting in a return to a premiere venue (Barclays Center in Brooklyn), then to the playoffs, and finally, the landing of three Hall of Fame players. Wait, you didn't really think a review of a women's basketball team in a pathbreaking women's basketball league was going to end with some male hero nonsense, right? Give me a break. True Liberty fans know that the real driving force isn't J. Tsai but CLARA WU TSAI, who executive produced a historical documentary called UNFINISHED BUSINESS about the league and the team and who played an instrumental role in getting Breanna Stewart, who will likely be the greatest basketball player who ever lived by the time she retires on the team. Cite sources? OK, how's this for a source? Link: https://twitter.com/Lvallejocolom/status/1618304157496274945 CWT, as I call her, has been great in setting a new standard for other WNBA teams, many of them shamelessly cheap (and sexist, by extension). They've built immaculate practice facilities, have fought the league on its stupid travel policies that have the world's greatest athletes traveling in cramped economy class on commercial flights, and most of all, aren't afraid of investing in the team and treating it with the respect it deserves, not as some disposable property. The result has been big-ticket player signings. Besides Stewart, there's the acquisition by trade of Jonquel Jones (who specifically requested NYL as a destination), along with Courtney Vandersloot, plus the ongoing development of #1 pick Sabrina Ionescu and a squad of stellar role players: a big in UConn great and WNBA champion Stefanie Dolson, and a "sniper" and elite passer in Marine Johannes (French). Rounding it all out is the team's "cultural steward" Betnijah Laney, a complete two-pay player unafraid to do unheralded dirty work and defend tenaciously, 6 foot 10" tower Han Xu (who can also shoot), and two great defensive minded stoppers in Kayla Thornton and Jocelyn Willoughby. Will the NYL win this year? I'm not sure. These kinds of teams with stacked talent take time to reach full potential. (I've been particularly irked by the skittishness around giving Han Xu a bigger role, considering the comparisons she has drawn to Belgian big and elite shooter Emma Meeseman. But the turnaround has been remarkable, and I was so psyched that even though I have loved the Seattle Storm my whole WNBA watching life, I semi-converted to the NYL this year with a season ticket purchase. I do believe you will see a banner hung within the next 3 years as the talent continues to gel. L! I! B! New York Liberty! E! R! T! Y! New York Liberty! read more

New York Liberty - Professional Sports Teams Near Me - New York, New York

I can't believe I'm the first person to offer a review for the New York Liberty, New York's WNBA team. In 2000 I'd mostly given up on basketball except for some college games. The sport was becoming less about basketball and more about other stuff. Seeing a Knicks game meant spending $75-100. An old friend invited me to a New York Liberty game as the WNBA had been created in 1997. I haven't looked back since. Can women play basketball? Damn straight. They can also screw up as well as men do, but the Liberty offer a game that is just as exciting as the NBA, far more family friendly, far less expensive (except for the same high-priced junk food) and for me, a lot more fun. The quality of play gets better every year and the league has spawned a host of real stars. As a statement of how far we've come, there's also the sight of 12-year-old girls, faces painted with team colors screaming at the refs. Priceless. read more

The 2011 Newark NJ Liberty is a basketball team I absolutely want to get behind. They always play with a lot of heart whether they are winning or losing, and they have local talent in their three players from Rutgers. And Leilani Mitchell, depsite her being only 5-5 tall, continues to develop into one of the most exciting point guards in the league, with a dangerous range and a lot of ball handling ability. The mascot, Maddie, is hands down the most entertaining icon of the WNBA. That being said, the team's dismal, inconsistent performance and disappearing defense has really disappointed me lately. The team has quite apparently regressed from a would be powerhouse playoff contender just a few seasons ago to just a mere mediocre squad with no bench/depth and no fine tools whatsoever. They used to know how to win the game. Their giving up of 90+ points at HOME to Phoenix - yes, another WOMEN's TEAM dropped 90 on us! - the other night was such an embarrassment. Phoenix was allowed to take what seemed like a year high in shots because the pace of the game was so out of control with the touchdown passes and layups that were too often uncontested. Furthermore, NJ played ourselves right out of the game once again by shooting 57% at the free throw line, and wasting so many other opportunties to score. Their free throw form was generally bad, causing basketball fans to gasp, look away, or gag every time a particularly awkward Liberty player steps to the free throw line with her eyes half open and buckles her knees out of balance, as they lift off into the upright position promptly before releasing the ball, with a slingshot release at the backboard, attempting to bank it in off the side of the rim. I give them credit for their only one star caliber player remaining after the fire sale that occurred: namely, that overachiever L'il Mitchell. Perhaps the late-great Janel McCarville (she's dead to us now) was smart when she decided to depart the team in the last offseason to pursue better opportunities overseas. The front office has made so many bad decisions and it is clear to me that they would rather be a minor league level team and cut anyone who makes any money. They can still bring small crowds in to root for the good teams and make the Liberty out to be those underdogs from New Jersey that go almost .500 every year in the weak division, and back into the playoffs without breaking the bank. Where does our hailed top prospect Jessica Davenport even play these days? When the face of the franchise, Becky Hammon was sold to Texas for that first round draft pick, the rookie acquisition was supposed to redeem the team, not stink up the place. But instead Davenport quickly disappeared from the game of basketball, and the Libs have never been too competitive since as they continue to self-destruct, and become less and less relevant in the annual playoff conversation. Hey, the Liberty is still a fun game day experience and I would continue to go once in awhile, whenever I have $15 to $65 to blow on a sideline seat, plus $25 on transportation and $9 on a drink, to scout out what a good opponent can do while the Liberty rolls over and falls again. Just can't count on our NJ Libbies to do anything special this year with the current make-up of this team being too inexperienced, with coaches not being able to teach how to shoot free throws properly or draw a foul, and players lacking solid potential to improve upon their record. They're still good on TV, because I can change the channel when it gets ugly and the wheels fall off early in the third period. read more

Went on an Ashley Madison® date here (while I was still with my FIRST wife- I don't need the haters on Yelp saying anything else about my infedelity; I've been through that mess before and now I'm clean. I love my current wife). It was great I was able to buy Dibs™ from one of the ice cream boys that walk on the aisles. i've never been able to buy them during Knicks games tho. Has anyone else had that problem? After the game, one of the female players signed my Knicks sweatshirt. read more