As the postseason looms, the New York Liberty get back a major a reinforcement in Laney, the 2021 All-Star who hasn’t played since May.
The New York Liberty’s 2022 WNBA season has had a flair for the dramatics. It’s been a season so packed with last-second heroics (alas, for New York, on both sides) and record-breaking performances, you’d think it was something out of a video game … and, frankly, that’s not exactly too far off.
To that end, one of the Liberty’s most prominent stars, Betnijah Laney, is about to respawn.
Naturally, the first time the Liberty play with a completely empty injury report this season comes as they’re about to play their biggest game of the campaign, a late Saturday showdown against the Phoenix Mercury (10 p.m. ET, YES/NBA TV). After tonight, the Liberty (13-18) will be halfway through a crucial eight-game stretch to end their regular season. Entering Saturday’s two-game WNBA slate (with Dallas and Indiana tipping off two hours prior), the Liberty hold the eighth and final seed in the current playoff standings. Phoenix (13-19) is hot on their tail as the first team out with Minnesota and Los Angeles each a game-and-a-half out of the bracket.
Laney’s timing in returning from an eight-week absence brought about by a right knee injury thus couldn’t be better. While names like Sabrina Ionescu and Natasha Howard have proven capable of picking up the slack in her departure, last season’s metropolitan All-Star has been sorely missed. While it’s perhaps a bit too much to ask Laney to fully assume the weight of pushing the team to consecutive playoff berths for the first time since 2015-17, her impact in this crucial stretch can’t be denied, especially considering she’s weighed so heavily on the current floor representatives’ minds as the season’s carried on.
Laney Leads the Way
If anyone knows about succeeding on the professional level after being thrown through its grinder and coming out clean, even lauded, on the other side, it’s Laney.
A Rutgers alumna whose WNBA journey began a second-round pick, Laney’s trip to stardom began as a three-legged journey between Chicago, Connecticut, and Indiana before she enjoyed a breakout campaign with the Atlanta Dream during the WNBA’s bubbled endeavor. It was a quest that earned her the Most Improved Player Award and a new, lasting contract with the Liberty, who were desperate to add help to recovered Ionescu after her early injury afforded them only two wins in the Bradenton enclosure.
Laney fulfilled her on-court promise and then some in New York to the tune of a team-best 16.8 points and a career-high 5.2 assists en route to her first All-Star appearance. She also began the year with eight consecutive outputs of at least 20 points, joining an elite sisterhood that also featured Cynthia Cooper, Lauren Jackson, and Sheryl Swoopes.
Yet, it was Laney’s plays away from the stat sheet that, at least according to the current representatives, served as the true force behind the Liberty’s thrust into the top eight last season.
“I knew Laney had that in her. She needed that opportunity in her career and she got it coming to New York,” Howard, another member of the Liberty’s 2021 arrivals, said of her non-numerical contributions at the end of the season. When Howard declared she was happy to be sharing the floor with Laney as a teammate rather than an opponent, a smirking Bec Allen playfully interrupted to declare “100 percent.”
“She’s an amazing person. She leads with example, and with her voice, too,” Howard said in continuing to laud Laney. “I’m happy to call her my leader.”
The injury couldn’t sideline that quality: granted an opportunity to switch out of the Liberty’s traditional seafoam and black aesthetics, Laney’s colorful gameday fashions have likewise done little to soften her sense of leadership, as she more or less acts like a fourth assistant coach on Sandy Brondello’s staff.
“Without Betnijah, we’re missing aggressiveness, heart, a defensive mind,” Howard reiterated in July. “We miss pretty much everything, overall, that she does for us on offense and defense. We also miss her voice on the floor.”
“She brings a level of leadership,” Michaela Onyenwere, another New York teammate and the WNBA’s most recent Rookie of the Year, said in May. “She sees the floor, the game, and holds us accountable.”
Even if Laney doesn’t fully return to her star status from a statistical standpoint before this season lets out, having her words back in an on-court capacity could served as a vital x-factor.
Bee’s Defense Also Stings
The Liberty’s final eight games of the 2022 regular season all come against opponents they’re fighting for the final playoff spots: Brooklyn hosted the first three legs, witnessing a 20-point win over Phoenix last weekend before the Liberty swept the Los Angeles Sparks in a back-to-back set. The latter effort was a defensive struggle where New York made up a 20-point deficit to eek home a 64-61 triumph. Letting up 61 was the Liberty’s best defensive effort from a scoring standpoint this season.
New York has cracked down on defense as the game start to mean more: in this past week, the Liberty are far and away the league leaders in defensive rating (84.9) and points allowed (67.7, a far cry from the 82.2 they’re letting up on average this whole season). Those numbers come with the return of Laney, whose defensive prowess has been lauded since her entry.
Pokey Chatman perhaps partly kept her WNBA career alive thanks to that skillset: it was Chatman, now an assistant coach in Seattle, who was impressed by Laney’s defense in Piscataway that drafted her to the Chicago Sky in 2015. Hired in the thankless task of overseeing the meandering Indiana Fever, Chatman brought Laney back aboard for defensive purpose, per Keith Geswein of High Post Hoops in 2019.
Though few hints were offered of Laney’s eventually return … at least not until the Los Angeles double was heralded with a half-court practice shot … Laney weighed heavily on the Liberty’s minds. Brondello felt, for example, that her services were sorely missed when the team dropped a 78-69 decision to the Washington Mystics on July 21. Washington, one of five teams that has clinched its playoff ticket, staved off the Liberty with second-chance opportunities (outrebounding the Liberty 7-4 on the offensive glass) and prime shooting chances (outscoring the Liberty 11-6 over the final five minutes).
Brondello felt that Laney’s prescience … or lack thereof … might’ve effected the outcome. Back in May, Brondello referred to Laney as “(not) just a scorer, but a defensive player, too.”
“Maybe that’s what we need. We’re getting one of our best players back who’s been out all season long,” Brondello said. “It’s unfair for her (that) she’s been out for a long time. For me, you get to the playoffs and it’s a new season. Now not just depends on how you play.”
Laney could thus help the Liberty cap off its defensive evolution, one that could be the deciding difference over partaking in the playoffs or merely watching them.
Asking Laney, after all, to fully recapture her scoring prowess in such a little time … even if the Liberty’s prevailing mindset is to reach a postseason where anything is possible … is a little much to ask. Thus, asking her to re-find her defensive game would be a formidable yet realistic goal, while her facilitation should likewise be observed: one of Brondello’s preseason goals was to further channel Laney’s skills as a facilitator after her career-best passing season so as not to rely upon her.
“We still want Bee to be Bee, being aggressive and being hard to guard, but (also) knowing that she doesn’t have to carry the load,” Brondello said of her 2022 expectations for Laney. “It’s all about playing selfless basketball (and) moving the ball (and) Bee’s a great playmaker. She doesn’t have to just be a scorer. She can be a facilitator as well.”
With Ionescu and Howard united to average over 30 a game, that goal feels more realistic than ever, even as the injury bug gnashed its teeth.
Main Image: AP/John Minchillo
Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags
Baseline Sports NY is on Twitter @Baseline_NY
