Liberty, WNBA MVP Breanna Stewart Joins Knicks' Willis Reed in Elite Company

Breanna Stewart's MVP award made history in more ways than one, as the New York Liberty star joins a legend of New York Knicks past.

Breanna Stewart has made a brand new start of it and then some in old New York.

The 29-year-old Syracuse native was bestowed the WNBA's MVP Award on Tuesday in recognition of her stellar first season with the New York Liberty. In 40 games Stewart averaged a career-best 23 points and 3.8 assists in addition to 9.3 rebounds. 

“Stewie’s first season with the New York Liberty has been nothing short of historic on every level,” Liberty general manager Jonathan Kolb said in a statement. “The constant resiliency, belief, selflessness, toughness, and professionalism she has brought to the Liberty on a nightly basis is an incredibly rare combination – culminating in such a special season, both personally and collectively. 

Brandon Todd, NY Liberty

"We could not be more thrilled for Stewie to receive the highest individual honor in our game, which is incredibly deserved, and for her to continue propelling both our organization and the WNBA to new levels.”

Stewart's MVP award proves historic in several ways: she becomes the first Liberty representative to hold the WNBA's MVP title in their shared 27-year history and she also becomes the second player to win it with multiple teams (previously doing so with Seattle in 2018), joining Elena Delle Donne.

Of particular interest to New Yorkers, however, will be the fact that Stewart breaks a five-decade drought when it comes to major basketball MVP awards: with her win, Stewart is just the second Gotham resident to earn such a title, joining the late New York Knicks star Willis Reed, who earned the NBA's equivalent in 1970. 

Stewart will look to continue her quest to break another lengthy metropolitan hardwood drought, namely the lack of championships. Her next chance to do so comes on Tuesday when the Liberty take on the Connecticut Sun in Game 2 of their ongoing best-of-five semifinal set (8 p.m. ET, ESPN2). Connecticut leads the series 1-0.