Liberty Depth Stars Explain Why 2024 Is Different

The New York Liberty's next championship run begins on Thursday night in Los Angeles.

Jun 25, 2024; Belmont Park, New York, USA; New York Liberty forward Kayla Thornton (5) grabs a rebound against the Minnesota Lynx in the first quarter of the Commissioner’s Cup Championship game at UBS Arena. Mandatory Credit: Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports / Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports

BROOKLYN-How do you get to the WNBA Finals? For the New York Liberty, it may simply be practice, practice, practice.

As several of their teammates partook in the Paris Olympics, Kayla Thornton and Kennedy Burke held lliteral court with the rest of the New York Liberty, prepping for the second portion of the WNBA season that tips off on Thursday night. Burke, Thornton, and the Liberty are in Southern California to face the Los Angeles Sparks at Crypto.com Arena (9 p.m. ET, ESPN), part of a brief road trip that reaches Las Vegas on Saturday.

In the meantime, depth stars Burke and Thornton repped the Liberty away from Barclays Center's hardwood, making several content-worthy appearances together over the WNBA's All-Star/Olympic break. The two repped the team at its "Brooklyn Dribble" event (featuring a parade of Liberty fans dribbling basketball across the piers of Brooklyn Bridge Park) and later filmed an appearance at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, NJ.

"It's a lot of fun to hear that a lot of people like us," Burke said as fans young and old flocked to her and Thornton. "I just love the connection that we have together. At the end of the day, we're just being ourselves. I just love the connection that we have together."

Brandon Todd, NY Liberty

That connection is about to take on greater importance as seafoam action resumes on Thursday night, which stages the first of 15 regular season contests before the playoffs tip off.

Sitting atop the WNBA leaderboard, the Liberty (21-4) can clinch a playoff spot with a win and a little help (Atlanta losing to Seattle on Friday). But the team has larger aspirations, namely ones that end with the franchise's first WNBA Finals victory. The team reached the final stage last season but fell to the two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces in four games.

Speaking at the Brooklyn Dribble, Thornton remarked that this year's title trek isn't so different from the one that came before it but that the heartbreak of the last Finals outing could ultimately serve as a vital difference for a group whose roster stayed mostly intact after the loss to the Aces.

"The people that we have here are definitely are helping us get to where we are trying to go," Thornton said. "But I think just what we experienced last year, having that fire, just always remembering how far we got and how we didn't get what we needed, having that in the back of our minds when we go into this last stretch will be huge."

Olympians like Sabrina Ionescu and Breanna Stewart are the obvious headliners for the current Liberty group and the American gold medalists are flanked by Jonquel Jones and Courtney Vandersloot (fellow All-Star Betnijah Laney-Hamilton will not play in Thursday's game due to a knee injury). But the ironic part of it all is that a team armed with such firepower often only goes as far as its role players and second unit can take it.

Both Burke and Thornton have played major roles off the bench for New York and have succeeded in spot start duty in the waking of injured and resting starters like Laney-Hamilton and Stewart.

Relatively new to the game after coming over as one of the new additions to the second unit, Burke was firm in realizing her purpose with the championship-hunting New Yorkers.

"My energy," Burke said when asked what her championship difference could be. "Whenever I step on the court, I'm just being ready, no matter what. I say a lot, but whether it's being a defensive threat or offensive threat, I just have to be ready no matter what."

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