The idea of the three women playing for the same W.N.B.A. Talk turned to the nature of super teams. “Where New York can improve is being a women’s-basketball city as well.” “New York is obviously a basketball city,” Stewart said. In 2019, Joe and Clara Wu Tsai, the owners of the Brooklyn Nets, bought the team from Dolan and ended its suburban exile. In 2018, he banished the Liberty from Madison Square Garden, forcing the team to play its home games at the Westchester County Center, a five-thousand-seat venue in White Plains. For years, the franchise languished under the ownership of James Dolan, the owner of the Knicks. The Liberty wasn’t always a strip-steak-and-ginger-shot team. Or a wrap from a fridge.” Stewart knocked back a ginger shot and grimaced. Jones spent her first six years in the league playing for the Connecticut Sun: “The most you had there was a shake or a smoothie.

“Some days, I’ll leave the gym, and I’m literally, like, ‘I think I’m good, I really don’t need to eat any more,’ ” she said, forking some stir-fried noodles with vegetables.

There are all these people to help you.” Jones concurred. You come in, and there’s breakfast every single day. “The amenities and facilities that we have here, it’s eye-opening. “We’re here to change the way the league is going about its business,” Stewart said, opening a container of strip steak with pineapple sauce. Boxed lunches had been provided by the team. As players ran drills up and down the court, Stewart appeared on the sideline, wearing a pair of her signature Puma Stewie 2 Ruby sneakers.Īfter practice, Stewart, Jones, and Vandersloot met for lunch at the empty Crown Club, a private night club situated in the bowels of the arena. “She played with her wife in Chicago.” Powell covers the Liberty for The Next, a women’s-basketball news site. “Sloot was the big surprise,” a sportswriter named Jackie Powell said, referring to Vandersloot. At a recent preseason practice at Barclays Center, in Brooklyn, a group of reporters appraised the new arrivals. Breanna Stewart, a former UConn star, and Courtney Vandersloot, a hawk-eyed point guard, signed free-agent deals. Jonquel Jones, a six-six center with a silky jump shot, arrived via a trade. This past winter, the New York Liberty went on an acquisition spree unprecedented in W.N.B.A.

Marta xargay child