Liberty Year In Review 2024: Jonquel Jones

An MVP effort in the WNBA Finals allowed New York Liberty Jonquel Jones to add the final stone to her gauntlet.

Geoff Magliocchetti | Dec 29, 2024

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, 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: Jonquel Jones

Name: Jonquel Jones
Season: 8th (2nd with Liberty)
Key Stats: 14.2 points, 9.0 rebounds, 1.3 blocks, 3.2 assists, 53.8 field goal percentage

How It Started

Jones landing in New York was almost poetic: sent to the Liberty in a trade with the Connecticut Sun, the Bahamas native was looking to add the final piece of her championship puzzle just like the franchise was. Her accolades included the 2021 MVP award and guiding the Sun to the final round in 2019 and 2022.

Jones was part of the great offseason seafoam splurge of 2023, coming to New York through a multi-pronged deal that also landed the recently-departed Kayla Thornton. Forced to miss most of training camp while she fulfilled her remaining international duties, the busy ailing Jones got off to a slow start, at least by her standards in Brooklyn. Fellow arrivals Breanna Stewart and Courtney Vandersloot, as well as the continued work of returnees Sabrina Ionescu and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, masked her medically-induced shortcomings.

Forced into a rare week home during the All-Star break, Jones resembled her dominant self in the second half of the season, averaging a double-double (12.3 points, 10.3 rebounds, 1.2 blocks) in the last 22 games. She would follow that up by posting a double-double in all but two of the Liberty's 10 postseason games.

Jones' final mainstream averages (11.7 points, 8.4 rebounds) were among career-lows, but the fact that's considered a drop in production is simply a larger case for her inclusion on the WNBA's Mount Rushmore of the decade. Even so, the slow start and the loss to Las Vegas in the Finals offered Jones' opponents their worst nightmare: a chip on her athletic shoulders.

How It Went

Healthy and able to partake in the Liberty's late offseason prep, Jones got off to a scintillating start and never looked back. Her early outburst helped New York open on a 21-4 note before the All-Star/Olympic break, one that established plenty of momentum to grab the top seed early on and never relinquish it. She shot over 55 percent from the field in the first half, including 61 in June alone.

Can one teach a new New Yorker even newer tricks? Jones certainly made the case for it: her scoring, rebounding, and defense (94.4 rating, over three points better than last year) spoke for itself but a year of surprising yet vital emergences of adaptation (Ionescu's drive and interior game, Thornton's outside prowess), the pleasantries culminated in Jones becoming the passer that New York football fans have long sought.

Essentially swapping skills with Ionescu, Jones facilitation reached bizarre, if not wholly welcome, levels: in June and July, Jones was second among WNBA tall women (6-4 or taller) with 4.1 assist per game, behind only her teammate Stewart.

Jones ended the year with a relatively paltry 3.2 assists per game but that was double what she put up over six years in Uncasville. It afforded her a return to the All-Star Game and inclusion at the outskirts of the MVP conversation. Foul trouble in the second half (averaging three charges a game over the final 14) somewhat ate away at continued dominance but she cleaned up her act well enough by the postseason: granted yet another opportunity at postseason championship glory, Jones refused to let this one go to waste, averaging 17.6 points and 7.8 rebounds en route to Finals MVP honors.

Finest Hour

How did Jones secure MVP honors despite trailing Stewart in most major statistical categories? She simply obtained her finest form: herself.

When the climactic fifth game against the Lynx tipped off, most New Yorkers struggled to live up to their expected skillsets, evidenced by the meager 27-point output on their halftime score column. Granted a gift by the basketball goddesses, Jones took full advantage: her rebounding an interior prowess solidified her MVP case and kept the Liberty in the game. United with the breakout performance of her spell option Nyara Sabally, Jones posted a 9.9 net rating and scored 17 points while New York was a team-best plus-10 on the scoreboard during her time on the floor.

They Said It

"I'm really proud of my journey. I went out there to play to win and not to lose. The experience that I had, even though it wasn't the best experience and we lost in the past, it allowed me to be a little bit more relaxed in the situation and just understand that these moments aren't guarantees. It's not a given. You have to kind of just take advantage of it but also live in the moment and really appreciate what it took to get here, too."-Jones after winning Finals MVP

"I said it multiple times: she's an amazing human being. Even last year, when it was slow to get her going, she stayed locked in, kept her confidence. She's a former MVP ... she's just a skilled big player. It's pretty fun to watch when she can shoot threes, do a bit of a Eurostep, pass it to her teammates. [Passing] is something that she's always had, and we're continuing to find ways to continue to grow it. This is her just taking ownership over it."-Head coach Sandy Brondello on Jones

What's Next

What do you get the woman who now has everything? More.

From the minute she touched the Finals trophy, Jones made it clear her jubilation would not be limited to New York, works that proved prophetic when she and teammate Betnijah Laney-Hamilton brought the celebration home to her native Bahamas. Jones hopes it's the start of a renovation to athletic infrastructure in the Carribean, as one of her goals is to see domestic opportunities surface for "natural talents."

Beyond that, Jones is a firm part of the Liberty's foundation, as she is frequently included in the "big three" discussions seafoam brass has touted. Signed to a multi-year deal last offseason (and set to play in China over the offseason), Jones is bringing back her trademark interior prowess back to the fold, and now she has a ring to defend. If she retains her new found facillitation powers, Jones won't have to wait long for her second championship trophy hoist.