Nyara Sabally will miss the 2022 season but her early injury issues have done nothing to deter the Brooklyn brass from labeling her a vital part of the Liberty’s hopeful future.
BROOKLYN-As the 2022 WNBA season’s tip-off looms, the New York Liberty are getting their ducks in a row. Alas, one literal Duck, hailing from Oregon, won’t be available this season.
New York general manager Jonathan Kolb confirmed that lingering injury issues will keep rookie Nyara Sabally out for the entire 2022 season, which begins at Barclays Center on May 7. Sabally was chosen with the fifth overall pick of Monday’s WNBA Draft on Monday in Tribeca after two seasons on Eugene’s hardwood.
Kolb, speaking alongside first-year head coach Sandy Brondello in the selections’ aftermath on Friday morning, brought up Sabally’s status when discussing the necessity of a draft night trade with Seattle that put the Liberty back in the second round, where they’d select Lorela Cubaj. Obtaining the Georgia Tech alumna was vital when faced with the reality that the drafted Sabally would have to take a de facto medical redshirt.
“We knew heading into the selection for Nyara that there was a very strong chance that she would not play this year because of her current health condition…that will be the case,” Kolb said. “We knew (that in) taking her, we’re going to have her rights going forward. We’re going to work with Nyara and her representatives and doctors to make sure that she’s ready to roll for 2023.”
Sabally herself spoke after Kolb and appeared to be in good spirits, willing to use the coming campaign as a learning experience. Her sister and fellow Oregon hoops alumna and current Dallas Wing Satou has been a guiding light in the early professional process,
“She just said that she was super excited for me and that this is such a big thing that I need to enjoy it, take it all in,” Sabally said of the advice her sister offered her. “She said that the next few days are going to be a lot and a lot is going to come down and everything…I have a sister that has been through all this before, so she can kind of pave the way and help me through and it’s definitely very helpful.”
Looking towards the future, plans in motion for Sabally
With Sabally’s early departure, only Cubaj, chosen in the 18th overall slot acquired from the Storm, is on pace to serve as a New York rookie this season. Third-round choice Sika Kone will remain overseas, but was described by Kolb as a “long-term project”, albeit one “with a really bright future”.
Sabally managed to piece together a strong collegiate resume in the Pacific Northwest (14.2 points, 7.5 rebounds per game) despite injuries eating away her first two seasons entirely. She suffered a knee injury while repping her home nation of Germany at the FIBA U18 European Championships in August 2018, re-injuring it in the following summer as well. The injuries prevented Sabally from partaking in Oregon’s program record-setting campaigns in 2018-20 (which saw them win 97 games). They also denied her a chance to suit up with Satou and college basketball’s triple-double queen Sabrina Ionescu, though she’ll likely get a chance to work with the latter, who is set to enter her third full WNBA season after the Liberty welcomed her in as the top choice of the aforementioned 2020 draft proceedings.
If anyone can sympathize with and understand what Sabally is about to go through, it’s new teammate DiDi Richards, whose basketball career nearly came to an end after a spinal cord injury sustained during a preseason practice session temporarily left her paralyzed. Richards fought her way back to become last season’s 17th overall selection and became one of the vital contributors of the Liberty’s postseason push. Both she and first-round choice Michaela Onyenwere were named to the WNBA’s official All-Rookie team.
“She’s obviously an inspiration. Everybody knows what she has overcome. It was such an insane story and I really look up to her for that,” Sabally said of Richards. “The worst thing that probably could have happened and she dealt with it with so much grace and then made such an amazing impact in the WNBA. So I’m just really excited to kind of learn from her and everything she’s been through. It just tells you everything about her work ethic and her hard working spirit.”
In her relative redshirt year, Sabally is looking forward to rebuilding her relationship with Ionescu (“I can’t wait for her passes.”), analyzing the games of WNBA veterans (namely taking inspiration from Chicago’s Emma Meeseman) and building an off-court connection with New York.
“I’m just looking to inspire young girls. I think that is one thing I’m really big about just inspiring the younger generation, showing that you can fight through adversity,” Sabally said. “If you stick with what you love and what you believe in, you’re going to be great. That’s kind of what I want to bring to the league, just this sense of inspiration and hard grit.”
The younger Sabally missed eight additional games last season due to further knee issues, thus putting her on a path where the Liberty apparently wanted to take no chances when it came to her long term health. Kolb made it clear that progress earned at the sacrifice of player health wasn’t something he’d be interested in.
“Player health is paramount, and I think it’s been something that hasn’t been looked at in a really long time in our league,” Kolb said. “We want to be really careful with not only developing players in terms of their skillset in games, but also their bodies and making sure they’re well taken care of and so ownership was willing to make an investment in people and bring them in and what we have now is a set up here that I believe is the best in the league player care standpoint, and I hope it sets the standard going forward. But that’s where our focus is, taking care of our players.”
“Nyara is somebody that has, I would argue, the highest ceiling in this draft and we believe that in the future could be a major building block for us.” – Jonathan Kolb, Liberty General Manager
Despite the bad news concerning Sabally, both Brondello and Kolb appeared to believe that Sabally will reveal herself as a worthy addition to the rising Liberty cause, which is looking to build upon the franchise’s first postseason appearance since 2017.
“I think we always like to identify, especially in the draft, players that are really versatile. I think we had a goal, in the offseason, in free agency, as well as the draft, to get bigger and get stronger in that area. I think we really accomplished that,” Kolb said of an offseason that also welcomed veteran interior prescience Stef Dolson, formerly of the defending champion Chicago Sky. “Nyara is somebody that has, I would argue, the highest ceiling in this draft and we believe that in the future could be a major building block for us.”
“We wanted players that can come in and complement the core group that we have here. The versatility is a big piece here,” Brondello added. “The way that we want to play we want to make sure we have a great Inside Outside attack, and not just being all outside. So I think the players that we bought in I mean, you know, can make an impact not just now but obviously for many years to come.”
Following the reveal of her season-long absence, Sabally did not appear on the Liberty’s training camp roster released on Friday afternoon and consisting of 14 players. A pair of 2019 draftees were among the inclusions, each attempting to make their way back from two-year absences: Asia Durr (chosen second overall) is in the midst of a comeback from a bout with long-term COVID-19, while fan favorite Han Xu (the first Chinese-born WNBA draftee since 1997) has spent the last two years overseas. Bec Allen and Stef Dolson will not immediately report to training camp as they each fulfill their international commitments.
Though not officially announced, the Liberty currently have a preseason game against the Washington Mystics slated for a 3 p.m. tip-off in Brooklyn on April 30.
Geoff Magliocchett is on Twitter @GeoffJMags
Main Image: Nyara Sabally | AP Photo/Adam Hunger
