At the moment, it is hard to muster much excitement about the New York Liberty’s 2023 season. As Alexa Philippou wrote for ESPN, “[T]he Liberty never backed away from explicitly stating their ultimate goal for the 2023 campaign: winning a championship. By that standard, New York fell short in 2023.”
New York’s failure to not just win a title but also to force a Game 5 against the underwomanned Las Vegas Aces makes it easy to agree with the Aces’ Kelsey Plum (regardless of the intention of her comment) and cast the Liberty as an overhyped, inauthentic super team that lacked the grit and “give a damn” needed to win a championship.
Yet, such an assessment is way too harsh. Here are the top takeaways from an undoubtedly successful season in New York:
The superteam experiment exceeded expectations
Just five seasons ago, the Liberty franchise was wasting away in Westchester, an embarrassment for the league due to the brutish incompetence of former owner James Dolan. Under the leadership of the Tsais, who took over after the 2019 season, the Liberty…
