Liberty Year In Review 2024: Kayla Thornton

An unexpected breakout from deep complemented Kayla Thornton's sterling defensive game for the New York Liberty.

Geoff Magliocchetti | 5 Hours Ago

Brandon Todd, NY Liberty

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New York Liberty

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 (such as that of the Golden State Valkyries in December) 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: Kayla Thornton

Name: Kayla Thornton
Season: 9th (2nd with Liberty)
Key Stats: 5.5 points, 94.5 defensive rating, 7.2 net rating, 45 three-pointers

How It Started

Thornton embarked upon her second season in seafoam after arriving as a stabilizing piece of the multi-pronged deal that acquired Jonquel Jones from Connecticut.

Coming to New York broke several norms in Thornton's professional and personal lives: the El Paso native who later became one of UTEP's finest rose from the ranks of the undrafted to carve out a solid six-year career for herself with the Dallas Wings, where she was a mainstay in the starting lineup (she's still tied for fifth in the history of the Wings/Detroit Shock franchise in games played).

With downright historic talents populating the Liberty lineup, it was clear that Thornton would have to earn her minutes and she mostly did so in year one by letting her defense do the talking. Thornton played all 40 games en route to the 2023 WNBA Finals but saw her minutes at least somewhat dwindle when Marine Johannes returned from international duties and assumed the de facto sixth woman position. The former Miner averaged less than 10 minutes during the four Finals games, most of them coming when the results were well-assured.

How It Went

Thornton's immediate New York future had been well-secured when she and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton were inked to multi-year extensions. With Johannes left overseas, Thornton was the undisputed sixth woman this time around.

With her off-court jubilation matched only by her on-court tenacity, Thornton once again proved to be a defensive pest, putting up a career-best defensive rating of 94.5. Starting women even got to feel Thornton's wrath, as she got 11 starts in place of Courtney Vandersloot on bereavement leave.

Thornton's season, however, may likely be best remembered for a summer heat check, which saw her breakout as a three-point shooter on a team starring Jones and Sabrina Ionescu. She hit a career-best 45 triples this year, which included a stunning 6-of-7 performance in a June win over Los Angeles. New York was 9-1 when Thornton hit at least two threes, and this was the first season where she had at least 10 games with multiple triples since 2018.

While Thornton's prowess from deep eventually cooled off, she became a trusted member of closing fives, averaging 6.4 minutes a game in 35 fourth quarter appearances thanks to her reliable defensive exploits. Things capped off with a 20-plus minute showing in the final Finals showdown with the Minnesota Lynx, as her gritty brand of defense perhaps perfectly defined the 67-62 tally.

Finest Hour

Thornton's gritty final Finals showing, staged on her 32nd birthday, no less, was already one for the ages, but her three-point breakout — sinking nearly two a game in 10 games between May 31 and June 22 — brought some of the loudest cheers to Barclays Center.

That stretch started on May 31 when a visit from Washington gave Thornton a chance to put up the purest two-way game possible: in her first start in over a calendar year, Thornton put up 20 points, most of that built upon four crowd-pleasing triples, as well as a career-best five steals in a 90-78 New York victory.

They Said It

"KT has always been a fabulous leader regardless of the role that she's been in on previous teams and on our team. We've just empowered her ... KT is KT. She's not changing anything that she hadn't done last year. She's being confident, always coming ready play, locked in and playing her role to the best of her ability."-Head coach Sandy Brondello

"We all believe in her, we know what she's capable of. She sacrifices a lot to be on this team and I think we all understand that and embrace everything that she brings ... with her defensive intensity, being able to get up and get steals, (and then) hit big-time shots, we're happy for her, because hard work pays off."-Sabrina Ionescu

What’s Next?

Thornton is perhaps a perfect personification of why the Liberty often seeks to shed the "superteam" label: such a concept can only advance if its role players fulfill their titular duties and Thornton has done so brilliantly over the last two seasons.

Thornton's unexpected offensive endeavors perhaps shouldn't be relied upon but her defensive prowess has been a sterling cornerstone that no one in New York should take for granted. Whereas most teams worry about their depth — look no further than defending champion Las Vegas luring Tiffany Hayes out of retirement — New York has been able to sleep easily knowing Thornton is the first woman off the bench.

Time will tell if that's enough for Thornton to make the cut for the Liberty's six-woman list that will stray away from Golden State's clutches of the expansion draft. In any event, Thornton has established herself as a covetable part of a winning program.