{"id":181810,"date":"2025-09-25T23:46:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T23:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/181810\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T23:46:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T23:46:07","slug":"liberty-gm-jonathan-kolb-has-utmost-confidence-stars-will-re-sign-with-team-hartford-courant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/181810\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberty GM Jonathan Kolb has \u2018utmost confidence\u2019 stars will re-sign with team \u2013 Hartford Courant"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are changes coming for the Liberty<\/a> this offseason.<\/p>\n

But general manager Jonathan Kolb doesn\u2019t expect his star trio of Sabrina Ionescu, Jonquel Jones and Breanna Stewart \u2014 all unrestricted free agents heading into 2026 \u2014 to depart this winter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have the utmost confidence that they want to be back with us,\u201d Kolb said Thursday during a press conference at Barclays Center.<\/p>\n

Kolb\u2019s comments on his stars came after he explained why the team had moved on from head coach Sandy Brondello<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If the All-Star trio returns under a new head coach it would their fourth season playing together.<\/p>\n

But a lot could happen between now and the upcoming free-agent period.<\/p>\n

First, GMs are unsure if they\u2019ll begin negotiating with players after the New Year as per usual as the WNBA and players association are still at odds over a new collective bargaining agreement.<\/p>\n

A lockout is still looming as time winds down for the two sides to reach an agreement this fall.<\/p>\n

The WNBA could also feature a 2026 offseason with nearly every player being an unrestricted free agent as teams are prepared to offer bigger contracts than ever thanks to escalating national television deals.<\/p>\n

The player movement could be historic.<\/p>\n

Liberty players, though, made their intentions clear of returning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I\u2019m coming back,\u201d Stewart said after the first-round Game 3 loss against the Phoenix Mercury<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The two-time WNBA MVP then locked eyes with Ionescu seated near her at the postgame podium. Ionescu nodded in agreement and expressed her interest to stay in New York.<\/p>\n

Kolb added that the team is interested in bringing back Emma Meesseman, who is also heading into the winter as an unrestricted free agent.<\/p>\n

The GM noted Meesseman is a player the Liberty \u201cneeded more time with,\u201d after the Liberty acquired her this summer.<\/p>\n

The 2019 WNBA Finals MVP played in her first game back in the league on Aug. 3 after three years of no WNBA action.<\/p>\n

Her Liberty debut was just a month before the start of the postseason.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way Emma operates is she doesn\u2019t make decisions, which I respect, she doesn\u2019t make decisions before necessary. So I\u2019m not sure what Emma\u2019s plans are, and transparently and truthfully, I don\u2019t believe that Emma knows what Emma\u2019s plans are,\u201d Kolb said. \u201cIn terms of our interest level, initially, is yes, but ultimately, that needs to fit with whomever the head coaches and their plans.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are changes coming for the Liberty this offseason. But general manager Jonathan Kolb doesn\u2019t expect his star…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-181810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}