The story of the 2026 New York Liberty is a story of inconsistency. Despite having a title-contending team on paper, injuries and poor player fit led to the team landing just the No. 8 seed for the postseason. New York shocked the league by becoming the first eight seed to knock off the No. 1 seed in this best-of-three first-round format, but the team was then swept 3-0 by the Dream, ending a weird, rollercoaster campaign and putting a ton of pressure on the team heading into this offseason.
Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu and Jonquel Jones are all under contract next season and the team will almost certainly try to retool around those players, but a number of other players on the Liberty roster are unlikely to be back.
Satou Sabally
Let's just start with the biggest thing that the Liberty need to do this offseason: trade Satou Sabally.
It's not that a healthy Sabally can't be a good player. It's more that at this phase of her and the rest of the team's respective careers, the fit is off. A starting lineup with Jones, Sabally and Stewart is just too big, and Stewart's complete lack of 3-point accuracy over the last couple of seasons means that the spacing is just really off. Moving on from Sabally and bringing in another wing who can space the floor more effectively is a must.
Sabally's $855K due next season is an issue as well. Both Marine Johannes and Pauline Astier will need new contracts and should be priorities for New York, and clearing Sabally's money off the books will help facilitate that. For as intriguing as Sabally can still be, she just isn't what the Liberty need right now. Hopefully a team like Toronto or Portland could view as her as a potential boost as the teams look to take steps forward.
Rebecca Allen
The Liberty brought Rebecca Allen in last offseason to provide the team with wing depth. It was a move that made sense considering the totality of her career, though the Liberty were also betting that her struggles with the Sky were just a blip.
The answer turned out to be a little of both. Allen regained some of her efficiency, knocking down 40.6 percent of her 3-point attempts, her best mark since 2019 (when, coincidentally, she played for New York), but she continued to struggle inside of the arc and saw most of her other numbers drop. Maybe the most damning thing for her future with the Liberty is that New York had a -1.6 net rating with Allen on the floor.
Upgrading the backup wing role with a player who is more than just a 3-point shooter will really help this Liberty team. While Allen definitely was that in her first go-around with the franchise, she isn't that anymore. New York has to basically reconfigure its depth this offseason, and Allen will be a victim of that.
Rebekah Gardner
Back in 2022 with the Chicago Sky, Rebekah Gardner had one of the most interesting rookie campaigns ever. As a 31-year-old rookie, Gardner averaged 8.4 points and 1.4 steals per game, becoming an instant contributor for the Sky. But a foot injury cut short her second season with the team, and an Achilles tear while playing overseas in 2024 cost her the 2024 season as well. She was traded to the Liberty, where she's spent the past two seasons.
Simply put, Gardner hasn't lived up to her rookie-season production. She shot 47.6 percent from deep in her first year back, but that plummeted to 25.5 percent this season.She played just 14.9 minutes per game and was basically a less effective version of the team's other Rebecca/Rebekah, Allen. With Gardner now 36 years old, it makes sense for the Liberty to let her walk in free agency.
Moving on from both Gardner and Allen opens up room for the team to add another wing in free agency. Money might be too tight to get someone like Kennedy Burke (though she'd be a good fit), but maybe the team can go after Rachel Banham or Rae Burrell — if the price there is right.
Add us as a preferred source on Google