Breanna Stewart's Secret Meeting May Have Saved New York Liberty's Season
The New York Liberty are 2024 WNBA champions.
While New York looked like the WNBA's best team for pretty much their entire 2024 campaign, there were also a few rocky moments mixed in. One example was the controversial way that their winner-take-all Finals Game 5 against the Minnesota Lynx went to overtime (because of a questionable foul call Breanna Stewart received).
But the Liberty might not have even reached that point if not for a pivotal decision Stewart made weeks prior.
A Tuesday episode of the 'The Athletic Women's Basketball Show' podcast revealed details of a previously unreported meeting that Stewart called with her Liberty teammates.
"The New York Liberty struggled heading into the postseason," The Athletic's Ben Pickman said. "On the final day of the regular season, they lost at home to the Atlanta Dream. It was a game that was meaningless for the New York Liberty, they had already locked up the No. 1 seed, but they still played their starters... and still lost by double-digits.
"Afterwards, Stewie was really frustrated," Pickman continued. "She believed that New York had let their standards slip and that they were not playing up to the level that they should have. And so following the defeat, she called a team meeting that night. Stewie described it to me as the type of meeting where you either get on board or you get out."
He later added, "This was [Stewart's] moment. And she began it by holding herself accountable as both a leader and a player. She was pretty candid with the group... She said 'This was effing B.S. that we got to this point. And we talk about culture and wanting to do the right things and pushing each other, and it's all fluff. Unless we get into the nitty-gritty and address things, we're never going to get better.'
"And it was the kind of tone players told me they had never seen Stewie have before," Pickman added. "She was direct with teammates, calling people out about what they needed to do better as well, and eventually every single player spoke... but it all started with Stewie."
🔊New @TheAthleticWBB Show w/@sabreenajm & @itszenakeita 🔊
— Ben Pickman (@benpickman) October 22, 2024
-How NY won Game 5
-Officiating controversy
-Sabally 2nd half
-JJ, Phee, Stewie
-A previously unreported meeting that sparked Liberty playoff run (see part ⬇️)
-Early outlooks for MN/NYhttps://t.co/ZZjd2eRzqM pic.twitter.com/9UfoZk0J0Y
We all know how Stewart's decision turned out.
Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.