Tag: New York Liberty

Despite rough season, Sabrina Ionescu has WNBA’s most popular selling jersey

Despite an ankle injury impacting her performance, former Oregon guard Sabrina Ionescu had the WNBA’s top selling jersey in 2021.

Former Oregon Ducks star point guard Sabrina Ionescu had the highest selling jersey in the WNBA this past season, according to a tweet from the New York Liberty’s Twitter account.

Ionescu was among the most popular athletes on the planet during her final season in Eugene playing for coach Kelly Graves and the Ducks, and it’s clear becoming the first overall pick in the draft, and moving to the media empire that is New York, did not hurt her popularity one bit.

A severely sprained ankle limited Ionescu to just three games during her rookie season, and while she was healthier in 2021 – appearing in 30 games and making 26 starts – it’s clear she never quite returned to 100 percent health and it showed on her stat sheet.

Ionescu averaged 11.7 points, 6.1 assists, and 5.7 rebounds while shooting just 37.9% from the field, 32.5% from three and 91.1% from the charity stripe.

Still, the soon-to-be 24-year-old is among the most popular WNBA players in the league right now, and if she comes back fully healthy in 2022 you can bet she will be among the top performers in the league – and her jersey sales will remain around the top of the list.

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Sabrina Ionescu records her first professional triple-double

This is the Sabrina the New York Liberty were counting on as the GOAT records her first pro triple-double.

New York Liberty fans and just general WNBA fans better get used to this.

Sabrina Ionescu collected her first professional triple-double for the Liberty with 26 points, 10 rebounds, and 12 assists to help New York defeat Minnesota 86-75. New York is 3-0 for the first time in 14 years.

She also became the youngest player to complete the feat as no other player did it before their third season. Ionescu has six games under her belt.

Watching the former Duck rack up such a stat line is nothing new for those who witnessed her brilliance in Eugene. In Ionescu’s four seasons for Oregon, she managed to collect 26 triple-doubles in her career and that number most likely would have been higher if the 2020 NCAA tournament had occurred.

Ionescu made triple-doubles a regular event at Oregon, but they don’t happen all that often in actuality. She became the 10th player in league history to have a triple-double, and the first since Chelsea Gray did it in 2019 for the Los Angeles Sparks.

New York will attempt to go 4-0 on Friday with a trip to Washington to take on the Mystics.

 

 

Sabrina Ionescu just made a ton of WNBA history with her first career triple-double

Sabrina Ionescu is already rewriting WNBA history books

Sabrina Ionescu was the triple-double queen at Oregon — that goes without saying. She had 26 total during her time in college. It’s only natural to think that she’d come to the WNBA and make the same magic happen.

She got started on Tuesday night with her very first career triple-double.

She was an absolute star in the Liberty’s 86-75 win over the Minnesota Lynx. She notched the very first triple-double of her career with 24 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds.

That only begins to scratch the surface about how much this game actually means, though. She’s rewriting the WNBA’s history books already at just 23 years old.

In just her sixth career game she became the youngest player in the history of the W to get a triple-double and the first player to ever do it for the Liberty.

On top of that, she’s just the ninth player in league history to ever have a triple-double. Other names include Candace Parker, Cheryl Swoopes, Lisa Leslie and Courtney Vandersloot.

Did I mention that this is just her sixth career game? Get ready to rewrite those record books, WNBA. Ionescu is just getting started.

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Liberty’s Sabrina Ionescu nails three-point game-winning buzzer beater to kick off WNBA season

Nothing but net for Sabrina Ionescu on this game winner.

The first night of WNBA action has not disappointed in the slightest. Between a strong slate of games and Sabrina Ionescu starting off the evening with this incredible game-winning buzzer beater for the New York Liberty, basketball fans have gotten everything they’ve wanted and more.

On Friday, during the Liberty’s game against the Indiana Fever, fans were looking at a possible overtime with the score deadlocked at 87 with less than 10 seconds remaining. With New York holding possession, Ionescu received the ball and was able to fire off a shot from beyond the three-point line after getting her feet set with two seconds remaining.

And the shot was good! A complete no-doubter at that too for the game-winning shot.

Ionescu’s celebration with her teammates says it all. Not only that, this was just Ionescu’s fourth career WNBA game after missing the majority of the 2020 season due to injury.

What awesome stuff from the 23-year-old.

We should have known Ionescu was going to pull off some stellar stuff on Friday, as her pregame outfit consisted of a Kobe Bryant jersey, a tribute to her friend from one basketball great to another.

Welcome back to the court, Ionescu. The basketball world is happy to have you back.

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WATCH: Sabrina Ionescu drills game-winner in WNBA season opener

Sabrina Ionescu came back where she left off after last year’s ankle injury with a three-pointer to win the game for the NY Liberty.

The GOAT has returned!

If anybody thought Sabrina Ionescu would be slowed down by last year’s ankle injury, better think again.

Always eager to make the big play, Ionescu made the biggest play of them all as she hit a three-pointer with 0.4 seconds remaining to give her New York Liberty the 90-87 win over the Indianapolis Fever.

Ionescu isn’t a stranger to hitting game-winners as she made a name for herself as a freshman at Oregon when she hit a similar shot to stun California.

Liberty fans are hoping this is just the start of what should be a very special career in the Big Apple. Ionescu’s rookie season was cut short just three games into the 2020 season due to an ankle injury that required surgery.

Now fully healthy, it was complete Sabrina Mode and the Fever were the unfortunate recipients. Ionescu finished the game with 25 points and 11 assists to go with six rebounds.

New York Liberty guard Asia Durr was robbed of a second straight season by COVID-19 and that’s heartbreaking

This is so heartbreaking.

Asia Durr is one of the brightest young stars in the WNBA with loads of potential. Heading into the 2020 season, everyone was excited about the possibility of her sharing a backcourt with Sabrina Ionescu.

Now, because of COVID-19, we’re just hoping that she’ll be able to play basketball again someday.

Durr will miss her second straight season in a row because of complications she’s suffering from COVID-19. The Liberty placed Durr on their suspension list for the full season on Wednesday and listed her personal decision as the reason why.

Durr has been battling the side-effects of COVID-19 since she was diagnosed last June. In January she made an appearance on HBO’s Real Sports and was open about how the virus was impacting her.

She has no idea if she’ll ever be able to play basketball again.

“I haven’t been able to [play]. It’s really challenging for me. I’ve talked to doctors and they’ve told me I’m not cleared yet. I’m not cleared to do anything physically which could cause flare ups, what they call it. And that’s what’s really hard for me. Because in life whenever something was hard, I would go and play. I can’t even do that now. I can’t even shoot a free throw.” 

That is just absolutely heartbreaking. Keep in mind that Durr is only 24 years old going through all of this. What a tragedy.

Situations like this one are exactly why taking this pandemic seriously is still so important. It’s why being vaccinated is so important. It’s why being both mindful and safe is so important.

It’d be great to see Durr get back on the court soon but, honestly, that’s secondary right now. Basketball will always be there. More importantly, she just needs to get healthy again so she can live a normal life.

Hopefully, she can reach that point again soon.

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WNBA star Sabrina Ionescu: ‘We hope to empower a younger generation of girls’

New York Liberty star guard Sabrina Ionescu, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 WNBA draft, will play her first game at Barclays Center next month.

New York Liberty star guard Sabrina Ionescu, the No. 1 pick in the 2020 WNBA draft, will play her first game at Barclays Center next month.

Ionescu is the NCAA’s all-time leader in career triple-doubles and was the first player in college basketball history with at least 2,000 points as well as 1,000 rebounds and 1,000 assists.

She developed a strong relationship with the late Kobe Bryant, who held one-on-one training sessions with her, and his daughter Gianna Bryant. Ionescu was one of the speakers at Bryant’s memorial service in February 2020.

The former Oregon standout recorded 33 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists while shooting 6-for-10 from beyond the arc in just her second professional game. But she suffered an injury in the subsequent game that kept her on the sidelines for the remainder of the season.

We caught up with Ionescu to discuss her injury recovery and some of the other projects that she has worked on during the offseason leading into her sophomore campaign.

Please note this interview was minorly edited in its transcript for clarity.

Sabrina Ionescu’s ankle injury had basketball fans everywhere shook

It doesn’t seem to be too bad

The WNBA’s shining rookie star Sabrina Ionescu suffered an ankle injury during the New York Liberty’s game against the Atlanta Dream on Friday.

The Liberty rookie badly turned her ankle after she stepped on a defender’s foot when bringing the ball up the court.

Rolling an ankle always looks like an awful thing, but this looked far worse than the typical ankle sprain. She had to be carried off of the court by her teammates after. Fans had fears of the worst for the WNBA’s number one pick.

And can you blame them? This looks awful.

Here are her teammates carrying her off the court.

Fans were extremely worried about the Liberty rookie.

Some of her NBA contemporaries chimed in with well wishes, too, including LeBron James.

Fortunately, though, Ionescu’s MRI came back negative and it turns out she just has an ankle sprain, according to a report from The Athletic’s Shams Charania.

It sucks that Ionescu is hurt. She’s already so good! She already hung up her first 30-piece in a game against her former teammate Satuo Sabally and the Dallas Wings.

And she got off to a great start against the Dream on Friday. She was getting buckets and making hustle plays like this one.

She’s just an incredible player and the sport of basketball is better when she’s on the court. Hopefully, she gets well soon and isn’t away for too long.

Warriors welcome back WNBA with shoutout to Bay Area native Sabrina Ionescu

Before the WNBA’s return, the Golden State Warriors shared a special shoutout to Bay Area native and first overall pick Sabrina Ionescu.

Before 22-teams open up the NBA’s Orlando Bubble next week, the WNBA kicked off their 2020 season on Saturday morning. Prior to the action getting underway, the Golden State Warriors welcomed back the WNBA on Twitter.

The Warriors shared a series of photos that included Stephen Curry and Draymond Green with WNBA Stars Candace Parker, Sue Bird and Aerial Powers.

Following the Warriors welcome back message to the WNBA, Golden State posted a special shoutout to Bay Area native Sabrina Ionescu.

Prior to a historic college campaign for the Oregon Ducks, Ionescu played her high school basketball in the Bay Area at Miramonte High School in Orinda. On Saturday, the 2020 No. 1 overall pick made her WNBA debut for the New York Liberty against the Seattle Storm.

Via @warriors on Twitter:

Against the Storm, Ionescu tallied 12 points on 4-of-17 shooting with six rebounds, four assists and a steal. Former WNBA Most Valuable Player Breonna Stewart recorded 18 points to lead the Storm to an 87-71 victory on opening day.

The WNBA will play a 22 game regular season schedule followed by a full postseason slate at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida.

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LeBron James one of many NBA players to support WNBA tip-off

LeBron James was one of many NBA players to support the official start of the WNBA season on Saturday.

Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James was one of many players across the NBA who sported WNBA-branded gear on Saturday in honor of the start of the WNBA.

The WNBA season kicked off for real on Saturday morning as No. 1 pick Sabrina Ionescu made her WNBA debut in an 87-71 loss at the hands of the 2018 WNBA champion Seattle Storm, who welcomed back 2018 MVP Breanna Stewart and veteran point guard Sue Bird after both missed the entirety of the 2019-20 season due to injury. James and the Lakers played in a scrimmage on Saturday against the Orlando Magic and James pulled up to the scrimmage with the orange WNBA hoodie that many other players wore on Saturday.

In addition to James, players around the league such as Oklahoma City’s Chris Paul and Portland’s Carmelo Anthony, posted photos of them in their WNBA hoodies to show support for the ladies who started their season this weekend.

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