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Liberty Year In Review 2024: Breanna Stewart

Breanna Stewart lived up to her advertised expectations and finally brought the New York Liberty a championship.

Geoff Magliocchetti

Brandon Todd, NY Liberty
In this story:

After 27 years, 40 games, 12 more playoff contests, and even a fateful overtime period, the New York Liberty finally stand as WNBA champions.

New York earned its first postseason WNBA title with a five-game series victory over the Minnesota Lynx earlier this fall, capping off a monumental season for the WNBA. For now, the championship serves as a culmination of a long-gestating plan put forth by Liberty leadership, one that brought home the first basketball team honor to the city in over five decades.

The Liberty’s path to a repeat comes at an exciting if not turbulent time on the WNBA timeline: rosters are set to endure tremors caused by expansion drafts, free agency, and upcoming collective bargaining agreement discussions. 

With the season itself gone — but the memories never fading —Knicks on SI looks back at a victorious season that was and what’s ahead for the Liberty on a case-by-case basis.

2024 Year In Review: Breanna Stewart

Name: Breanna Stewart
Season: 8th (2nd with Liberty)
Key Stats: 20.4 points, 8.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 1.3 blocks

How It Started

To tell the story of Breanna Stewart is to pen one of the most meaningful chapters of women's basketball history. Fresh off a glorious decade between Storrs and Seattle, Stewart needed no introduction upon her return to the Empire State in 2023 (she originally made a name for herself at Cicero near her native Syracuse). She was, however, more than happy to provide a refresher course.

Stewart put forth an MVP effort in her metropolitan debut, setting numerous seafoam-branded records in her wake. She put forth a career-best 23 points per game, pairing them with 9.3 rebounds while expanding her scoring reach to the outside, hitting a career-best 82 triples as she joined the Liberty's three-pointer. With her offensive output paired with top All-Defensive Team honors, Stewart took home her second MVP award, narrowly beating out fellow American basketball legend A'ja Wilson.

The loss to Wilson's Las Vegas Aces in the 2023 WNBA Finals hit everyone in New York fairly, understandably hard but the loss weighed particularly heavy on Stewart: she shot 3-of-17 in the Brooklyn-based climax but it's the shot she didn't take that haunted her the most. With the Liberty down by one in the final stages, Stewart passed the ball off rather than try a potential series extender. The lost opportunity clearly stuck with Stewart, who was a free agent going into the winter though general manager Jonathan Kolb immediately declared his intentions to bring her back mere hours after the Finals loss.

The late stages of 2023 were also an emotional period in Stewart's personal life as she lost her father-in-law Josep to a bout with cancer shortly before the Finals. She and her wife Marta Xagary honored his memory upon the arrival of their second child, a son named Theo who took Josep as a middle name.

How It Went

Stewart confirmed her commitment to New York from the get-go, taking a friendly deal in lieu of an expensive core deal (while keeping that option on the table down the seafoam road).

In her encore, Stewart's early efforts created the type of digits that 98 percent of other players would die for (19.3 points, 9.0 rebounds in the pre-All-Star/Olympic portions of the season), something still felt off about her game. Perhaps it was the struggle to retain her outside prowess (22.9 percent in that span) or lingering turnover issues (just over two per game) but something seemed just a tad askew in the early going, especially with Wilson and Napheesa Collier separating themselves in the new MVP race.

A Parisian takeover helped set the tone for the rest of the season: uniting with Wilson, Collier, Liberty teammate Sabrina Ionescu, and more, Stewart was one of the undeniable headliners of the United States women's basketball team's latest run at Olympic gold, reaching the All-Star Five as chosen by FIBA. French fatigue proved to be barely an inconvenience as the Stewart Liberty fans came to know and love--and opponents came to dread--returned with a vengeance.

In the post-Olympic/All-Star tally, Stewart averaged over 22 points a game and brought back the deep ball with a 40 percent rate from three. In that same tally, Stewart was in the top 15 in both offensive and defensive rating among WNBA regulars (min. 25 minutes/game) and was fourth in points in the paint per game at 10.9.

Finest Hour

Two days removed from the one-year anniversary of the Game 4 loss to Las Vegas,Stewart took on the name of redemption in the Liberty's championship finale against the Minnesota Lynx.

The grittier side of Stewart emerged amidst a meager scoreboard, as she capped off the series with three consecutive double-doubles obtained in the rebounding department. Her interior prowess kept New York in the game and kept Minnesota within their sights, as she hauled in 13 points and 15 rebound, the latter tied with 2017 Candace Parker for the second-most in a winner-take-all Finals Game 5.

The final stanzas of regulation completed Stewart's self-authored seafoam redemption arc in more ways than one: ten days after missing a crucial free throw that indirectly allowed Minnesota to complete a historic comeback in Game 1, Stewart's sank two to force the extra overtime session--earning the fateful freebies by taking the final shot she sought for 367 days. New York never looked back after that, as her tallies generated just enough momentum to secure the 67-62 win.

They Said It

"Winning in Seattle was amazing and nothing takes away from that. But to be able to bring the first ever to the Liberty and the first in 51 years ... my first WNBA game I ever went to was at MSG, was the Liberty and to have that be full circle was amazing."-Stewart on winning a championship in New York

"I think that all of it has continued to kind of give me perspective in everything that I've been able to do, especially last postseason. It was a combination of so many emotions: amazing, sadness, tears, happiness from having a newborn. It's kind of like just the emotions you feel as you go through life. It's great to have the perspective to make sure that I have a circle around me and know that, you know, specifically speaking about Marta's dad, like, doing the things that he would want us to be doing and making sure that we raise Ruby and Theo to be their best and also figure out what they want to do, too."-Stewart on how 2023 shaped her for a championship journey

What's Next

Never one to limit her activities and impact to the hardwood, Stewart is embarking on a new project this offseason alongside Finals foe Collier, as the two will stage the league known as "Unrivaled," a three-on-three showcase situated in Miami. Stewart will compete for Mist BC alongside Liberty teammate Courtney Vandersloot.

Not only could the league help flip the script on offseason work for the WNBA's finest (especially considering recent issues when it comes to playing abroad) but there are unique investment and NIL opportunities open to its participants. It's yet another example of Stewart's enduring legacy set to alter the past, present, and future of not only the WNBA but perhaps women's basketball as a whole.

In local affairs, Stewart is once again a free agent, but all signs point to her re-entry. The lone drama, at least for the time being, figures to be whether Stewart retires in New York--a prospect Liberty fans and perhaps the basketball community as a whole hope doesn't surface for a while.

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Geoff Magliocchetti
GEOFF MAGLIOCCHETTI

Editor-In-Chief at All Knicks

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