Betnijah Laney has made a career of bouncing back. She's once again exactly what the Liberty need as they face a 1-0 deficit in the WNBA Finals.
to come to New York this past offseason, an endeavor that involved an international recruiting effort in Turkey in January.New York was coming off a 2-20 season that year, but Kolb had identified Laney -- a 6-foot guard/forward named the 2020 Most Improved Player following a career season with the"It's hard to speak the vision into existence , but she really was bought-in during our conversations during that time," Kolb told ESPN this week.
After averaging 12.8 points in the regular season, Betnijah Laney is scoring 16.1 points per game in the playoffs. Few would have foreseen Laney making such a big impact on such a big stage early in her pro career. A second-round pick out of Rutgers in 2015, she saw limited time with the, but her offensive game exploded in 2020. She had never averaged more than 5.6 points in a season prior to 2020. But once then-head coach Nicki Collen gave her the green light, Laney put up 17.
As the Liberty brought in a star-studded haul of players this offseason, Laney and Ionescu were the remaining holdovers of the pre-superteam era, main fixtures of teams whose ceiling had been simply making the playoffs. They'd been in New York even longer than Brondello, who was hired in December 2021. The Liberty knew Laney would be an important part of the equation, but it took time to figure out how.
Indeed. Across the regular season and postseason, the Liberty are 21-2 when Laney scores at least 14 points. In the playoffs they are 0-2 when she doesn't hit the mark, such as Sunday in Game 1, when Laney was limited to 11 points off eight field goal attempts, the fewest she has taken in a game this postseason.Her intangibles are just as crucial, especially for a team that has had to mesh so many players. Two-time MVPof the Aces noted Laney's motor makes her so tough to guard.
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