Major offseason questions loom after Liberty’s historic WNBA title

The Liberty will take some time to enjoy the franchise’s breakthrough first WNBA title, which they won in a hard-fought Game 5 on Sunday night to cap a classic Finals.

Then it will be back to business for the team’s brain trust. A busy offseason awaits.

The question will be how much general manager Jonathan Kolb chooses, or is forced, to alter the core of the superteam he has assembled.

And the typical maintenance of a championship roster will be complicated by the introduction of the expansion Golden State Valkyries for the 2025 season.

The WNBA will conduct an expansion draft on Dec. 6 to seed the Valkyries roster. Each of the existing 12 WNBA teams will be allowed to protect six players from their extended rosters — perhaps no major headache for the league’s bottom-feeders, but a serious crunch for a loaded team such as the Liberty.

It is safe to surmise the Liberty will protect each member of their postseason starting five of Sabrina Ionescu, Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, Leonie Fiebich, Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones. The intrigue revolves around that sixth protected spot.

Will the Liberty use it on veteran reserve forward Kayla Thornton, who is signed through 2025? Or on young backup big Nyara Sabally, whose contributions were invaluable to securing the Game 5 win?

Maybe they will instead elect to protect a familiar player who was not on the 2024 roster but whose rights they still hold: exciting French guard Marine Johannès or developmental Chinese center Han Xu.

Another long-shot option would be protecting the rights to point guard Marine Farthoux, a 2021 draft pick who featured for Team France in this past Summer Olympics.

After the expansion draft, the collective focus of WNBA front offices will shift to free agency. The marquee name is Stewart, the superstar who is unsigned beyond 2024, as she has been content to work on one-year deals.

But the Liberty are in no real danger of losing Stewart, who has signaled her desire to return. They can keep her from unrestricted free agency via the core designation — a one-year offer of the supermax salary, equivalent to the NFL’s franchise tag — as they did after the 2023 season (players can be cored up to twice, so it’s theoretically in Stewart’s interests to burn her second core tag).

The Liberty’s other notable free agent is Courtney Vandersloot. The veteran point guard, who will be 36 years old next season, is coming off her least productive season in a decade, which was interrupted by a midseason leave around her mother’s death. She likely would have to accept a pay cut from her 2024 salary of roughly $195,000 to stick around.

Prominent external WNBA free agents include: Dallas Wings forward Satou Sabally (Ionescu’s college teammate and Nyara’s sister), Las Vegas Aces guard Kelsey Plum, Seattle Storm forward Nneka Ogwumike, and the Connecticut Sun trio of Alyssa Thomas, DeWanna Bonner and Brionna Jones.

Of note here: the WNBA players opted out of the current collective bargaining agreement on Monday, and a new CBA would go into effect following the 2025 season. Players have avoided signing contracts that extend past 2025 in the expectation of the salary cap ballooning in 2026 as new media and sponsorship revenue streams in.

Lastly, the Liberty will have to scout for what is projected to be a loaded 2025 WNBA draft.

The Liberty hold swap rights with the Phoenix Mercury from a previous savvy trade, meaning they likely will move up to the seventh pick in the first round, in range to add a rotation player at worst.