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Previously published 2025-26 Offseason Guides:
Chicago Sky
Connecticut Sun
Dallas Wings
Washington Mystics
Los Angeles Sparks
Golden State Valkyries
Seattle Storm
New York Liberty players Natasha Cloud (9), Rebekah Gardner (7), Leonie Fiebich (13), Sabrina Ionescu (20), and Jonquel Jones (35). Photo credit: Chris Poss
2025 record: 27-17. 3rd in offensive rating, 6th in defensive rating. Finished 5th in the standings, lost to Phoenix 2-1 in the first round.
2026 draft picks: New York don’t have a first-round pick in the 2026 draft because it went to Connecticut as part of the Natasha Cloud trade, and don’t have a second-round pick because they sent it to Chicago as part of the Rebekah Gardner deal. So their only current 2026 pick is their own third-rounder.
Free agents: Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones (both uncoreable unrestricted free agents), Sabrina Ionescu, Natasha Cloud, Isabelle Harrison, Kennedy Burke, Emma Meesseman, Stephanie Talbot (all unrestricted free agents), Rebekah Gardner, Marine Johannès (both reserved).
Under contract: Nyara Sabally, Leonie Fiebich.
2025 performance: It all started so well. For a significant chunk of the season the Liberty were the closest challengers to the Minnesota Lynx at the top of the standings, and everyone was anticipating the prospect of a Finals rematch. But eventually their litany of injuries and the resulting inconsistent lineups began to take their toll. Throughout their ‘superteam’ era the Liberty have been conservative nursing players through injuries, rightly believing that they had enough backup talent to keep winning anyway while players took all the time they needed to recover. It always felt like the target this year was to make it to the playoffs relatively healthy, and if that meant losing a couple of spots in the standings then they’d live with it. If they needed to win on the road in the postseason to advance, a fully healthy Liberty roster would be good enough to do it. But all those changes damaged their chemistry, and they still weren’t themselves despite the entire roster being available. Even after winning Game 1 on the road in Phoenix they dropped an absolute stinker at home in Game 2, and were sent home in the decider.
It was the sort of season where lots of the players on New York’s hyper-talented roster were pretty good, but most weren’t at their absolute peak. Sabrina Ionescu had her usual high counting stats and made second-team All-WNBA but dropped below 30% from 3-point range. Breanna Stewart’s struggles from outside continued and her rebounding rate was comfortably the lowest of her career, plus another injury disrupted her season. Jonquel Jones’s shooting averages were high, but there were far too many games where she was barely involved and faded out of the action. Natasha Cloud was a useful addition on the perimeter but still didn’t fully answer the question of what kind of guard would be the best option next to Ionescu. Even Emma Meesseman, a world-class talent and midseason addition that every team in the league was chasing, was fine — but far from game-changing. It was a year of almosts for New York that probably would’ve been easily forgotten if they’d come together for a playoff run at the end. But the journey made that difficult to pull off, and they became yet another reminder of how hard it is to repeat as champions in this league.
Offseason finances: The Liberty aren’t immune from this section being the same as everyone else’s this year — they have a couple of players on rookie-scale deals, and then lots of free agents and cap space. They’re one of the teams that could be an interesting test case under a new cap structure, because if all their players suddenly decide they want to be paid every cent they’d be worth on the open market, it becomes hard to hold together a ‘superteam’ roster. Players might be less willing to take a discount if they’d have to give up $400,000 instead of $40,000 to open up meaningful space. On the other side of that coin, if we end up with a softer cap that has a mechanism to spend beyond the limit, Joe Tsai’s money could help New York become even stronger than before. There are CBA rules far beyond the headline-grabbing stuff that could make a huge difference to roster-building in the future.
Offseason priorities: In a surprise to many, the Liberty already announced that head coach Sandy Brondello’s contract would not be renewed for 2026. Taking the franchise to its first-ever championship last year might’ve been expected to earn Brondello a grace period, but GM Jonathan Kolb decided to move on. It feels like Kolb might prefer a younger innovator that will work with him more collaboratively, rather than a veteran coach like Brondello who’s always going to follow her own path. Of course that comes with risks, because those younger coaches are typically much less proven, but we’ll have to wait and see whom they eventually hire.
In terms of the roster, they’ll presumably try to bring back most of their star-laden rotation. Stewart and Jones have both reached the limit of years played under core contracts, so assuming the rule continues to exist they’ll probably core Ionescu. Should she want to leave, at least they’d be able to demand significant compensation in return. Then it’s over to Kolb to see what he can bring together. New York have become a popular destination under him so they’ll inevitably be in the market for various stars, assuming the cap makes it plausible. Even though it never quite came together this year, this was still an exceptionally talented roster. If they can bring most of it back they probably will, just with new coaching and a tweak here or there. A little more youth might be nice, but they won’t sacrifice talent to go younger. The target will once again be a championship unless things go very, very wrong when free agency opens.
Future assets: Because of Kolb’s international scouting and roster building, the list of players the Liberty have rights to beyond their end-of-season roster is enormous. They have the suspended rights to Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, Han Xu, Raquel Carrera, Annika Soltau and Seehia Ridard. They have reserved rights to Ivana Dojkić. They have draft rights to Marine Fauthoux and Adja Kane. Unless the league changes the rules, they will have to renounce some of those rights because there’s a limit of four per team that can be carried over to the next league year (hence why you often see rights being dropped on December 31). But several of those players could help add depth to a roster if they’re healthy and available at some point. New York haven’t made any deals yet that touched their 2027 draft picks, so they still have all of their own and no extras.
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