After nearly three barren decades, the New York Liberty finally reached the land of milk and honey last season. It took five games, some controversy, and overtime in Game 5, but they saw off the Minnesota Lynx to win the franchise’s first WNBA championship.
Of the eight original teams that took part in the WNBA’s first season in 1997, only the Liberty, Los Angeles Sparks, and Phoenix Mercury remain in their original iteration, with the Las Vegas Aces, who were originally the Utah Starzz and then the San Antonio Silver Stars before settling in Sin City, the only other franchise to have a link to the league’s opening campaign.
While the Mercury and Sparks have three championships and five WNBA Finals appearances apiece, the Liberty entered last season still searching for a championship.
In the first six seasons of the WNBA, the Liberty reached and lost in the Finals four times (1997, 1999, 2000, and 2002). Then, after making a long-awaited return to the championship series in 2023, they lost to the Aces in four games.
But after watching other teams celebrate success time and again, the Liberty finally celebrated their own success last season. They were the best team in the league in the regular season and backed it up in the postseason, though the Lynx certainly made them work for it.
With the playoffs set to begin this weekend, the Liberty are one of the WNBA championship favorites, according to BetOnline and other top online sportsbooks.
But should they be? Or are they being overvalued by oddsmakers?
History Against Liberty for WNBA Finals Return
In the early years of the WNBA, the league was dominated by repeat champions. The Houston Comets won the first four titles from 1997 to 2000, followed by consecutive titles for Lisa Leslie and the Sparks in 2001 and 2002.
From that point, the repeats dried up until the Aces went back-to-back in 2022 and 2023. And since the Sparks’ run of two titles and a Finals loss to the Detroit Shock (now the Dallas Wings) in 2003, only seven of 21 champions have even appeared in the following season’s Finals.
That doesn’t make for a particularly optimistic outlook for the Liberty’s WNBA championship chances, does it?
Health Issues Hit Hard After Hot Start
More glaring than the unfavorable history for the Liberty is what the team has done this season.
To open the season, the Liberty won their first nine games, six by double digits. And even after being unable to sustain that sizzling start, New York was 17-6 in late July after a five-game win streak.
However, they will end the regular season having played under .500 basketball from that point. And after looking like they would battle the Lynx for the top seed this season, they will instead be the No. 5 seed for the playoffs and face the prospect of matchups with the Mercury then the Lynx in the first two rounds. Both of those teams are 3-1 against New York this season.
New York’s struggles after the All-Star break can be at least partly attributed to injuries to both of their best players. The third member of their top trio, Jonquel Jones, also missed more than a month in June and July with a sprained ankle, but the Liberty at least posted a winning record in her absence.
That wasn’t the case when two-time WNBA MVP Breanna Stewart missed nearly a month after suffering a knee injury against the Los Angeles Sparks on July 26. As a result, she missed 13 games before returning on August 25. In that stretch, New York won just five of 13 games.
As soon as Stewart returned, Sabrina Ionescu went to the sidelines with a toe injury, missing four consecutive games. In that stretch, the Liberty scored 63 points in a loss at Phoenix and a season-low 58 in a loss at Golden State.
Along with those injuries, the Liberty have played the entire season without Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, who tore her meniscus while playing with Unrivaled in the offseason.
Stay Away from Short Odds for New York
The injury issues have contributed to the Liberty being a popular fade option for those who bet on WNBA odds and peruse WNBA betting picks regularly.
Entering their penultimate regular season game against the Washington Mystics, New York was just 15-25-2 against the spread this season. That includes a dismal 4-16-1 ATS mark on the road, which is where the balance of their playoff games will be unless there are upsets.
With Stewart and Ionescu both ready to go for the playoffs, should the Liberty be spoken of in the same sentence of the WNBA championship conversation as the Lynx? Or the Aces? Or even the Atlanta Dream?
Given how things have gone recently, it’s perhaps easy to forget that they were 17-6 at one point and in a strong position for the No. 2 seed. At their best, this is a team that can make a run.
However, their record against the Mercury and Lynx, their likeliest first two opponents, and against most of the WNBA playoff field raises eyebrows in the wrong way.
New York Liberty vs. the WNBA Playoff Field in 2025
- Minnesota Lynx: 1-3
- Atlanta Dream: 2-2
- Las Vegas Aces: 2-1
- Phoenix Mercury: 1-3
- Golden State Valkyries: 3-1
- Indiana Fever: 3-1
- Seattle Storm: 1-2
That overall 13-13 record is propped up by two wins over the Aces when they were still trying to remember how to win, three wins over the Valkyries when they were still gelling, and three wins over the Fever, who were more hype than substance even in Caitlin Clark’s 13 games.
So, even if they are as healthy as they could hope to be at this point, will they show up against the higher seeds? The competition might just be better.
The Lynx have been the class of the league all season and kept their heads above water without Napheesa Collier far better than other teams who saw a star fall.
The Aces are the league’s hottest team right now and have its best player, who appears to have snatched WNBA MVP honors from Collier’s grasp with a dominant finish.
Then there are the Dream and Mercury, who have played well throughout the season. Atlanta has lost consecutive games just twice all season, and other than a 1-5 stretch in late July/early August, Phoenix has been a consistent winner.
Ultimately, that is the biggest reason to hold off on backing the Liberty at such short WNBA championship odds.
Despite the talent and pedigree that the Liberty possess, the four teams seeded higher than them all have a better argument to merit consideration no matter what the odds are. Only if the odds shift significantly should the Liberty merit consideration as your WNBA championship pick.