Why Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu keep saying they 'haven't done anything yet'

10/06/2024 06:49 PM

One year ago, the Las Vegas Aces did more than just celebrate in Brooklyn. After defeating the New York Liberty to win their second straight WNBA championship, they paraded through the bowels of Barclays Center.

Kelsey Plum had a boombox in hand and led other members of the team into the interview room to crash the postgame press conference, putting their full celebration in front of the cameras.

That's what happens when you win a championship. You earn the right to talk all you want. Looking back, Aces coach Becky Hammon didn't deny it.

"We talked a lot of smack last year," she said on Sunday after the Liberty bounced her team from the playoffs with a 76-62 win in Game 4 of the WNBA semifinals. "I'm sure they heard it, and they got to smack us this year."

The Liberty heard. Or, at least, heard about it. The memory of watching confetti fall in their own building for another team left them with a "scar," as Courtney Vandersloot described it.

It's why the Liberty players have said — after virtually every game in the 2024 WNBA Playoffs — that they haven't accomplished anything yet. After the Liberty won and punched their second straight ticket to the Finals, Sabrina Ionescu said it again in an on-air interview with Brooke Weisbrod.

A few minutes later, Breanna Stewart echoed her.

"We haven't done anything yet," she told reporters.

With the Liberty back in the Finals, it'd be normal to question whether the team really means that. So one reporter pushed her on it. Stewart held her ground.

"We went to the Finals last year," she said. "We didn’t do nothing."

Her head coach, Sandy Brondello, chimed in.

"If you don't win, there's no satisfaction there, is it?" she said.

The Liberty are the only remaining original WNBA franchise that has never won a championship. They won a franchise-record 32 games last year and fell short when it mattered. They won another 32 this year and have only the Minnesota Lynx or Connecticut Sun left standing in their way.

It took a year to get back to this point and New York got to do it by celebrating in the Aces' home arena.

The mutual respect between the Liberty and Aces

The Liberty and Aces' own success has made them the WNBA's most natural rivals. And while the personalities among their coaches and star players differ wildly, there's a similar mental makeup between both teams.

They're both loaded with ruthless competitors. They both have an edge (the buzzword of the week, it seems, in Vegas). They both look like they want to tear each other to pieces during the game, but have played together enough on the national stage that they can laugh and hug when the final buzzer goes off. That’s exactly what Stewart and A'ja Wilson, two Team USA teammates, did on Sunday.

"We have the utmost respect for what they've been able to accomplish, what Becky's done here in a short amount of time, and [we] thank them for helping us continue to get better," Ionescu said.

Reaching the Finals for a second straight year, Ionescu knows how difficult it is to win a WNBA championship. It makes what Las Vegas has done, even with their personnel, all the more impressive.

"To do what they've done is not easy," she said. "It's a testament to their togetherness, their experience, how hard it is that they're wanting to go out there and be their best every night, and they've laid down the foundation and continued to motivate everyone in the league."

The respect goes both ways. Brondello was an assistant coach and later the head coach of the San Antonio Silver Stars when Hammon played there. Much like the players, their relationship began before any talk of a rivalry.

"I have mad respect for Sandy. Sandy coached me," Hammon said. "Sab, Stewie, I have mad respect for those players, there's no doubt about it.

"It might seem like I have something [against Stewart] because of course I'm going to always ride with A'ja," she added. "But I think Stewie is phenomenal….if you're watching and paying attention, Sab is the key. She's the key. Stewie's going to go down as one of the greatest of all-time. And Sab will too. And my group of guards will too."

It's Brondello's group, however, whose season will continue. The Lynx and Sun will play their Game 5 on Tuesday. The winner will join the Liberty in Brooklyn on Thursday for Game 1 of the WNBA Finals.

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