Jonquel Jones Absolutely Roasts Former Team's Accommodations Amid Liberty Praise
The New York Liberty have every right to talk after winning the franchise's first WNBA championship last month.
And no player has more of a right than Jonquel Jones, who won the 2024 WNBA Finals MVP after averaging 17.8 points and 7.6 rebounds while shooting 56% from the field during the five Finals games.
Jones joined the Liberty in 2023 after spending the first six seasons of her WNBA career with the Connecticut Sun, where she won the 2021 WNBA MVP.
Before their first 2024 playoff game, the Sun sharing their practice facility with a community center event went viral and sparked much conversation (and lamentation) about the franchise's lack of a personal practice space.
And during her appearance on a November 7 episode of the "Kickin It With Dee" podcast, Jones went off on the sub-par practice accommodations of her former team.
"I played for the Connecticut Sun... While the [Sun] organization has been there a while, and I feel like the people in the front office try to do their best to make sure we have what we need, there was definitely a huge disparity, a huge gap, between playing for a team that owns an NBA team and is in that arena... versus when I played on the Connecticut Sun, we practiced in the recreational tribal facility.
"And so sometimes, there would be people doing yoga classes, and different stuff, and we would be practicing on the full court," Jones continued. "And we would have to put the divider down... and you peek your head over there, and there's like three people doing downward dog or something crazy."
Jones' Liberty team has been owned by Joe Tsai and Clara Wu Tsai since 2019, who also owns the Brooklyn Nets NBA franchise. The Connecticut Sun are owned by the Mohegan Tribe.
Jones later added, "Last year, the amount of money that I made off the court on one year was probably was probably more than I made in my entire WNBA career [with the Sun]."
JJ is cooking the Connecticut Sun 😭😭😭😭
— champion Domo🗽 (@ddubxdo) November 8, 2024
The Sun organization has to do better bruh .
That’s pathetic practicing in a gym where yoga classes is going on
pic.twitter.com/Vh3AbgU4HP
The new practice facility that Sun president Jen Rizzotti said is, “100% in the near future," can't come soon enough.
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.