The star who sparked a superteam may be lighting the way to a championship

For Superman, it was the Ultra-Humanite. Spiderman’s first was The Chameleon. Baby Hercules had Hera’s serpents. Every superhero faces an early test, the moment the legend comes to life. For the New York Liberty, the first test is tonight’s Commissioner’s Cup final against the defending WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces, the matchup everyone’s been waiting for: fans of the two superteams, fans of the other teams, the league’s bean counters, the analytics hordes, the purest of hoopers. The Liberty have talked about the significance of this first opportunity to win a trophy together. That they also seem to see it as the first of many years of opportunity is thanks in large part to Jonquel Jones, in many ways the franchise foundation – an unlikely one, in some ways; fitting in a city whose other championship cornerstones, while iconic, were ironic.      

The Liberty seek to become the first New York City professional basketball team to win a title since the two-time NBA champion New York Knicks of the early 1970s and the two-time ABA champion New York Nets of the mid-1970s. The cornerstone of those Knicks, Willis Reed, was never expected to take on that role. He’d entered Grambling University with plans on becoming a teacher. He wasn’t even the Knicks’ first draft pick in 1964. 

With the first overall pick they selected Jim “Bad News” Barnes, who seven games into his second season was packaged in a deal for Baltimore big Walt Bellamy – the same Bellamy the Knicks would trade three years later, acquiring Dave DeBusschere and freeing up the center spot for The Captain. Reed walked into his first NBA training camp at 22 as a second-round draft pick. A year later the Knicks traded for a four-time All-Star who played the same position. At 27, he’d inspired a championship for the ages and won Finals MVP. Just like they drew it up, right?   

In 1971, after his junior year of college, Julius Erving met with Nets’ general manager Lou Carnasecca seeking to sign with the team. The Nets, having a policy of refusing to sign undergrads, declined. After that, Dr. J’s travels were so fantastic Gulliver couldn’t keep up: Erving signed a four-year deal with the ABA’s Virginia Squires but soon chafed at the contract, wanting out. When his request was denied, he signed with the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks. Despite being drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks, he played preseason games with the Hawks, leading the league to fine the team. Erving filed an antitrust suit against the NBA; a judge ruled he had to return to the Squires while the question of freeing him from their contract was decided.

Ultimately the Squires traded Erving to the Nets for a good bundle of cash and George Carter, a Buffalo kid and former Squire All-Star. Nicknamed “Dirty Dingus,” Carter was some athlete, drafted by the Detroit Pistons, the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and MLB’s New York Mets. According to Virginia owner Earl Foreman, the Squires traded Erving to keep him from making the jump to the NB – a moot point when the ABA folded two years later. 

Erving tried to take control of his career by reaching out to the Nets while still in school, saw that career get taken to court while three teams in two different leagues made a claim on him, then was finally a Net, leading his hometown team to multiple trophies – only for the team to join the NBA three years later, a move they could only afford by selling Erving to Philadelphia. He fought so hard for so long for the simple right to live and work where he wanted, got it, delivered nothing but highlights and champagne and still ended up powerless.      

Jonquel Jones had an ironic start to her time at Barclays after six years in Connecticut. Since selecting her in 2016, the only time the Sun ever had a losing season was the pandemic 2020 season that Jones opted out of. She led the Sun to the Finals in 2019 and 2022. Player and team were both on the rise. Then in January, she requested and received a trade to New York. 

Normally when a team adds a four-time All-Star who was MVP two years ago, that’s their big move, the attention-grabber. Jones choosing to leave Connecticut for New York was more like the earthquake that begat the tsunami of Breanna Stewart leaving Seattle for the Sea Foam a few weeks later, which begat Courtney Vandersloot getting begot. Sometimes a cornerstone isn’t a big concrete slab. Sometimes it’s as small as the pebble that triggers the landslide. Not that there’s anything small about Jones’ impact.

In last year’s Finals she suffered a stress reaction in her left foot. She was still “building on it” when the team started training camp, and it was evident early in the season that she was not only acclimating to a new role on a new team, but to a foot that’d need time to heal. There were early glimpses that a good day for Jones meant a good day for the Liberty – a blowout win in Atlanta, a big win later in Connecticut. But it was after the All-Star break that her numbers took off.

In the 12 games since, Jones is averaging 15 points and 12 rebounds on 57% shooting. 3.6 of those rebounds come on the offensive glass. In the Liberty’s first 18 games, she had 3+ offensive rebounds five times, took 10+ shots three times and played 29+ minutes twice. In the dozen games since, she’s hit those marks 10, nine and nine times, respectively. When Jones scores at least 14 points this season, New York is 9-0.

The Liberty are a very good team with Stewart and Ionescu playing at MVP levels. With Jones playing the way she is, their ceiling becomes cathedral. Stewart is arguably the best big in the league. Pairing her up with an even bigger MVP at center sometimes just looks unfair.

New York’s defense has improved all season long. A switch-heavy scheme like theirs can only benefit from more time featuring a healthier 6-foot-6 Jones, who can weaponize her wingspan while rotating out in space or in the more classical vertical sense in the paint. There’s really no area of the floor – the glass, the lane, the midrange, the perimeter – where Jones doesn’t lend the Liberty more looks. 

The calculus between the W’s superteams is ever-evolving, and here is where an ascendant Jones could definitively tilt the balance of power. The Aces are currently without Candace Parker, out indefinitely after surgery on an injured ankle. The margins when measuring superteams are onion skin thin. Vegas without Parker is like Thanos without one of the stones. For nearly a month now, Jones has been Captain Marvel.  The first time the teams met, Parker was healthy, Jones was still healing and the Aces won in a runaway. Last time they played, Parker was out, Jones had a double-double and the Liberty blew the game out. It’s not as simple as Parker/Jones, but there’s room there for quite a bit of variance.

As much as talent, health or luck, sacrifice drives winning. Back in the day, the Knicks sacrificed one Hall of Famer to free up a greater one in Willis Reed. Julius Erving sacrificed the ease that comes with shutting up in exchange for a big pile to fight for control of his career. Of all the Liberty’s big additions, only Jones has never won a WNBA championship. She left a proven contender to build a better one at Barclays. Her move was the first domino to fall. Her play of late suggests she may have something to say about who goes down last, too.