Jonathan Kolb, general manager of the New York Liberty, has been awarded the 2023 WNBA Executive of the Year. Kolb just put together a superteam that is eight victories away from winning the first WNBA title in club history.
The award was chosen by the 12 league executives; no one was permitted to vote for themselves. Kolb garnered six first-place votes; Greg Bibb of Dallas and Darius Taylor of Connecticut both received numerous first-place votes (two each).
With the help of a historic offseason in which New York acquired the 2021 MVP Jonquel Jones in a three-team trade and signed 2018 MVP Breanna Stewart and seven-time WNBA assists leader Courtney Vandersloot as free agents, the Liberty went from barely making the playoffs to being a title contender in a year.
The Liberty, who tied the reigning champion Las Vegas Aces 2-2 in the regular-season series but finished two games behind in the standings, have established themselves as championship contenders with the addition of Jones, Stewart, and Vandersloot, 2020 No. 1 draught pick Sabrina Ionescu, and 2021 All-Star Betnijah Laney.
Given where the Liberty were in their rebuilding process, the availability of a player like Jones on the trade market, and the unrestricted free agency of Stewart and Vandersloot, already regarded as two all-time greats, Kolb said this week on ESPN that New York’s offseason was a “confluence of events that will probably never happen again.”
The club has stated that Stewart and Vandersloot’s willingness to accept pay considerably below the supermax contract in order to go to Brooklyn is an example of the collective sacrifice they have all made in order to win a championship. The Liberty are the only WNBA club still in existence that has never taken home a championship.
Kolb foresaw the possibilities of the haul early last year and carried it through effectively this summer. Ionescu, Laney, and sixth woman Kayla Thornton signed multiyear contract extensions during the regular season, and Kolb guaranteed their return, so the future also appears promising.
At the time, Kolb said, “it was really exciting for us to capitalise on it.” “You prepare for those situations and you hope that it will turn out the way you want it to, both with that happening and those players showing up, but also that it will work on the court.”
With a 32-8 record, the Liberty have the greatest winning percentage in club history (.800), a dramatic improvement following a 2-20 season in 2020 under Ionescu.sustained an ankle injury that ended his season early. The Liberty won their first title of any kind in August by defeating the Aces in the Commissioner’s Cup final.
It has been very fantastic to witness how hard everyone has worked to stay committed to that buy-in, according to Kolb. The finest gift of all is that everyone is who they claim to be.
The Liberty’s current success dates back to 2019, when Joe Tsai and Clara Wu Tsai acquired the storied but unsuccessful organisation that had been sending games to Westchester County. Following Kolb’s hiring, the front office attempted to relocate the team to Brooklyn, increase its visibility in the community, and establish it as a destination franchise with first-rate facilities and lodgings, an enlarged performance staff, and other resources not frequently found in the WNBA.
Regarding the franchise’s expansion, Kolb remarked, “I think this is right on time with our plan that we had in place.” Plans don’t always work out the way you had planned, but this one did, and we couldn’t be happier about it.
At 7:30 p.m. ET on Friday, the second-seeded Liberty welcome the seventh-seeded Washington Mystics to their home court.
Since 2015, New York hasn’t won a playoff series, and it hasn’t made it to the WNBA Finals since 2002. The Liberty, however, have a large number of players with extensive championship experience; Stewart won the WNBA championship in 2018 and 2020 (earning Finals MVP both years), Vandersloot won in 2021, and Jones had part in two Finals campaigns in 2019 and 2022.
Kolb remarked, “You’ve got a lot of postseason experience, especially among our starting guys. They are prepared to attack the task collectively and they are aware of what it is.