SB Nation is introducing every of the 12 members of the US Olympic Ladies’s Basketball crew this week. Right here’s what that you must learn about Breanna Stewart, probably the most adorned gamers within the WNBA.
Quick Info
Crew: New York Liberty (21-4)
2024 Common Season Stats: 19.3 factors (45.4%), 9 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals
Place: Ahead
Draft Class: 2016, Choose #1
All-Star Picks: 6 (2017, 2018, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024)
Earlier Olympic Appearances: N/A
School: College of Connecticut – received 4 nationwide championships (2013-2016)
Breanna Stewart’s resume is as storied as they arrive
Few resumes — in any sports activities — rival Breanna Stewart. Stewart — also known as “Stewie” — has two WNBA championships below her belt (2018, 2020) and two accompanying Finals MVPs. She’s received league MVP twice (2018, 2023) and been named to the All-WNBA First Crew 5 instances (2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023).
Previous to changing into knowledgeable, she led UConn to 4 consecutive nationwide championships, the kind of sustained dominance we very effectively won’t see once more in faculty basketball. In all 4 runs, Stewart was named the event’s Most Excellent Participant because the Huskies achieved a uncommon four-peat.
Her transition to the professionals was fairly seamless; she was named Rookie of the 12 months in her first yr and was an All-Star by her second. Just some years after that, Stewie was firmly positioned in girls’s basketball GOAT debate.
Maybe the wildest half is — she’s solely 29. So, the prolonged and practically unequalled record of accomplishments continues to be rising.
In 2019, she ruptured her achilles — and got here again even higher
Breanna Stewart ruptured her achilles enjoying in Russia forward of the 2019 WNBA season, and missed the complete yr. She was within the midst of enjoying one of the best basketball of her profession, and was only a few months faraway from her first Finals MVP and WNBA title.
However Stewie didn’t miss a beat, coming again in 2020 and main the Storm to a second championship. In 2018, she averaged 24.6 factors on 46.6% taking pictures en path to her first championship. In 2020, she truly improved these numbers, averaging 25.7 factors on 53.8% taking pictures.
After she received her second championship, Stewart mirrored on the scary preliminary moments following the harm.
“I didn’t know what was going to occur after rupturing my Achilles,” she later said. “You see all of the worst issues. You see all of the worst after which I wasn’t certain if I used to be ever going to be again to the place I used to be.”
However, her efficiency in 2020 signaled that she had extra than simply bounced again.
“What I’m essentially the most pleased with is simply the truth that I feel I’m higher now than I used to be earlier than,” Stewart told Holly Rowe a number of months into her return.
She’s a centerpiece of the New York Liberty, the WNBA’s prime crew
Forward of the 2023 season, Stewart left the Seattle Storm and headed to the Liberty, the place she teamed up with Courtney Vandersloot, Jonquel Jones, Sabrina Ionesco, and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton. Of their first season collectively, the Liberty excelled by in the end fell to the Aces 3-1 within the WNBA Finals. Stewart uncharacteristically struggled all through that playoff run, taking pictures simply 35.8% from the sphere en path to 18.4 factors per recreation.
This season, Stewie is averaging 19.3 factors, 9 rebounds, and 4 assists per recreation, whereas additionally anchoring the Liberty’s protection. She’s not having a profession yr, however she and her teammates have completed sufficient to maintain the Liberty on the prime of the standings.
At 21-4, New York at present holds one of the best document within the league, and Stewart appears poised to compete for her third championship.
She’s launching Unmatched, a three-on-three basketball league for the WNBA prime stars
Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier are co-launching Unrivaled, a three-on-three basketball league set to tip off in January and preserve the WNBA’s finest gamers within the US in the course of the offseason. The league might be based mostly in Miami, and embrace 30 of the league’s stars, ten of whom have already been announced, and already guarantees a minimal $100,000 wage.
“The necessity for Unmatched is as a result of now we have a seven-month hole in our season and a technique to preserve gamers dwelling, proceed to construct manufacturers and be in a unique market than a ‘W’ crew and simply construct off of that,” Stewart told Fox NY. “You see the second and the motion that’s occurring behind girls’s sports activities — particularly the WNBA and girls’s basketball, persevering with to only guarantee that individuals can discover us wherever they need.”
