The Liberty’s offseason from heaven just got even better.
On Wednesday afternoon, Breanna Stewart announced that she would be signing with the Liberty. With a video posted to her Twitter account, Stewart broke the news herself, posting a photo of the Empire State Building with the windows lit up to spell “STEWIE”, along with a video of her donning a Liberty shirt, captioned with the Statue of Liberty emoji.
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Stewart, the 2018 WNBA MVP, two-time champion and four-time All-Star, spent the first seven years of her career with the Storm. She only played in WNBA games for six of those seasons, though, as she tore her Achilles in 2019 while playing in Russia and missed all of the subsequent WNBA season.
One of the most decorated players in the modern game, Stewart now joins a Liberty roster that includes 2021 MVP Jonquel Jones, two-time All-Star Stefanie Dolson and 2020 No. 1 overall pick Sabrina Ionescu.
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Simply put, the Liberty is going to be a problem for the rest of the league.
The 2022 season saw the team go an underwhelming 16-20 and lose their first-round playoff series to the Chicago Sky. The team now hopes that the 2023 campaign — their third playing in Barclays Center — will not only bring their first playoff series win since 2017, but also deliver the franchise its first championship.
Wednesday was the first day that WNBA free agency officially opened, allowing players to sign with their new teams. Per ESPN, Stewart and the Liberty are still hammering out the details of her contract. Stewart is no stranger to the northeast, having grown up in Syracuse and playing college basketball at UConn, where she and the Huskies won four straight national championships and only lost five total games. In 2014 and 2016, her sophomore and senior seasons, Stewart led her team to undefeated seasons.
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With the offseason additions of Jones and Stewart, the Liberty has the east coast answer for the superteam in Las Vegas, which now features WNBA icon Candace Parker in addition to the incumbent A’ja Wilson, Chelsea Gray and Kelsey Plum, who piloted the Aces to the 2022 title.
According to ESPN, chartered air travel was a big factor in Stewart’s decision. The Liberty and owner Joe Tsai (who also owns the Brooklyn Nets) have been at the forefront of the movement to get WNBA teams to fly on chartered planes rather than commercially. The franchise was fined $500,000 last year for chartering flights without the league’s permission.
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“Stewie’s free agency is the story of the WNBA at an inflection point: Players understand their value, the potential of the WNBA, and are eager partners in growing a business that has incredible momentum,” Stewart’s agent, Lindsay Kagawa Colas, said in a statement released by ESPN. “She owned the process and the responsibility that comes with power in ways that hopefully will impact how smart free agents of all genders approach similar opportunities.”
With Stewart now gone, the cupboard is pretty bare in Seattle, where Storm legend Sue Bird announced her retirement after 20 years as the city’s point guard. During Stewart’s tenure with the Storm, the franchise made the playoffs every year, including 2019 when both her and Bird sat out with injury.
Now that she’s a member of the Liberty, Stewart has shifted the league’s tectonic plates quite dramatically. In one of the biggest moves in WNBA history, the Liberty have made one thing very clear: the 2023 season is about winning a championship.
