The WNBA training camp opens on Sunday, and Freedom is the team that will win this season.
Libs will be tasked with carrying the weight of the 2024 title with them at all stops for the next six months.
But the pressure that comes with being a title defender is a welcome privilege in Brooklyn.
“The mentality is changing the pages,” Breanna Stewart said after Sunday practice. “We spent a lot of time celebrating it, and now it’s become a building to get better.
The motivation for last year’s training camp was retaliation from a shortage in the 2023 WNBA Finals. However, last October, Liberty managed to win the franchise’s first championship after overcoming the Hump and winning the Minnesota Links in a thrilling five-game series.
This time, freedom is honing towards evolving.
“That’s what matters,” said Liberty manager Sandy Brondello. “It’s not something to repeat. With this difficult thing, we have to evolve. That’s what we’re focusing on. How do we do that? Individually, collectively, we all.”
For Sabrina Ionescu, work began in November. Her offseason was temporarily confused after a thumb treatment in December, but she came to camp feeling that she was “in the best shape of my life right now.”
Ionescu is not satisfied with one championship ring.
“It’s something that you have a brief memory of wanting to be the best and never settles down,” Ionescu said. “And I think everyone on the team understands when they come here… especially now, we’re a new season so don’t do what’s obvious.”
Many teams, including Indiana Fever, Phoenix Mercury, Las Vegas Ace, and the Atlanta Dream, strengthened their roster during their busy, free agency cycles.
Meanwhile, Liberty ran it back at the Championship Core, featuring Stewart, Ionescu and 2024 Final MVPs John Kel Jones and Leonie Fevich, moving forward with Guards Natasha Cloud and Isabel Harrison, and welcoming the returns of Marine Johanne and Rebeka Gardner.
“We have a lot of core backs [are] I’m excited about our new additions,” Stewart said. But I know that the target is on my back. ”
Before the season opener on May 17th, there are some things freedom needs to understand.
They need to find a solution to fill the big gap from starting the absence of Vietniya Rainey Hamilton after suffering a knee injury earlier this year, as she missed most, if not all of the 2025 season.
Freedom must also reinforce their benches and continue building chemistry with newcomers.
From that first team meeting, Blondelo was able to convey that the group already had the right mindset and focused on the title defense.
By the end of Sunday practice, Brondello felt that freedom was far ahead of the previous year.
“To be continuous, that’s the most difficult thing,” she said. “We will remain true to what we want to achieve this year and win that day, as we say, and I thought it was a great start.
