Leonie Fiebich gets 100% real on Liberty's 'desperation' after 2023 WNBA Finals loss

10/22/2024 07:51 PM

Leonie Fiebich wasn't in the WNBA last year. She wasn't on the court when Courtney Vandersloot's last-second shot sailed long, giving the Las Vegas Aces a title-clinching win on the New York Liberty's home court.

But once she joined the Liberty, she knew what effect that game had.

The returnees from that team called it a scar — a painful ending to what had been a magical season, serving as motivation in 2024 to get back to the WNBA Finals and finish the job.

A year later, the Liberty are WNBA Champions and Fiebich was the best rookie in the playoffs. After the decisive Game 5, a wild 67-62 overtime win over the Minnesota Lynx, Fiebich looked back at her first days with the Liberty.

The team signed her to a rookie scale contract in February, and in the preseason, she and her teammates met with the team psychologist. What came out of those meetings stuck with her.

"Everybody was opening up a little bit about how they were feeling last year and what carried over to this year and being part of that, I really felt the desperation out there on the court," she recalled.

Fiebich wasn't a true rookie, coming to the United States, having played professionally in Germany since she was 16. Now 24, her adjustment to the WNBA happened quickly, aided by length that made her a trustworthy defender and the best shooting touch on the team. By the time the playoffs approached, head coach Sandy Brondello had plugged her into the starting lineup.

Even with eight years of pro experience, the veteran-laden Liberty roster she joined in 2024 taught her how to maintain the level of desperation they had from that 2023 Finals loss while staying even-keeled on the court.

"Whatever happens throughout the game, lows and highs, just stay consistent, honestly, stick to our stuff and just trust our principles and trust each other," she said.

In Game 1 against Minnesota, she set the WNBA rookie record for made threes in a Finals game, going 5-9. She had 13 points and seven rebounds in the deciding game, playing 40 minutes.

Leonie Fiebich’s long road to the Liberty

In the United States, the talk around the Liberty in the Finals centered on the big three of Sabrina Ionescu, Breanna Stewart, and Jonquel Jones finally getting over the hump and bringing New York its first championship.

But basketball is a global game. A throng of German media made the trip to Brooklyn for Game 5 to cover Fiebich and her Team Germany teammate, Nyara Sabally. Amid the title celebration, Fiebich held court in the bowels of Barclays Center, fielding questions in her native language in a scrum of German reporters that about equaled the number of American reporters who covered the team during the regular season.

In that conversation, she reflected on the championship, sharing what the moment meant to her and her teammates.

The German media has followed her throughout the playoffs. Previously, she opened up to German public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk about being underestimated early in the season.

“Nobody knew me at the beginning,” she said. “That was really cool. I was able to play to my strengths a bit. Nobody knew that I could [shoot] the ball quite [that] well.”

She added that while media wanted to tell the story of her going from her small town of Landsberg am Lech to New York City, there were ups and downs in between.

"It wasn’t like that. I didn’t go from Landsberg to New York," she told the outlet. "I had many stops in between. The amount of work that went into it was and is very exhausting.”

That included being part of the Los Angeles Sparks and Chicago Sky organizations, who she felt did not value her ("they acted like I was not part of their organization," she told Winsidr).

The Sparks and Sky both missed the playoffs, while Fiebich was wearing a championship t-shirt and fielding questions in multiple languages from media who traveled from across the Atlantic to see her.

While she helped heal her teammates' scars from last year, she also built her own legacy.

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