A midseason mystery for the New York Liberty, despite a 2nd Commissioner's Cup title

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NEW YORK (AP) — The WNBA season is at its midway point and no team has been more of a mystery than the New York Liberty.

The Liberty have proven they can beat the elite teams in the league with victories over Minnesota and Las Vegas. New York became the first team to win the Commissioner's Cup championship twice with a victory over Las Vegas this month.

They've also shown inconsistencies with losses to Seattle, Toronto and Portland. New York has lost three straight games.

Injuries have caused problems again for New York as prized free agent acquisition Satou Sabally has been limited to 13 games so far. She hasn't played since June 25 while dealing with another concussion. The Liberty also missed star guard Sabrina Ionescu for the early part of the season first with an ankle injury and then a back issue.

Betnijah Laney-Hamilton has been working her way back from a knee injury that kept her out all of last season.

The Liberty sit at 13-11 and are currently in seventh place in the standings. It's a spot they aren't accustomed to and one that they didn't expect to be in.

New York can take some solace that Las Vegas was in a similar position last season, hovering at .500 before winning 16 consecutive games to close out the regular season last year en route to their third WNBA championship.

The Golden State Valkyries have taken over the top spot in the power poll for the first time in the franchise's two-year history. Golden State went 3-0 last week with road wins in Washington, Toronto and Connecticut. Minnesota fell to second. The Lynx were followed by Dallas, Las Vegas and Indiana. New York, Atlanta and Washington were next. Toronto was ninth and Los Angeles 10th. Portland, Chicago, Phoenix, Seattle and Connecticut rounded out the poll.

Los Angeles has been struggling this season and parted ways with general manager Raegan Pebley on Sunday. Pebley was hired as GM in January 2024 without any previous executive experience. The Sparks were 39-66 during her tenure, which included firing coach Curt Miller in September 2024 after two seasons. He was succeeded by Lynne Roberts, who went 21-23 in her first season last year.

The Sparks currently are 10-11, including consecutive wins over the Indiana Fever and Chicago Sky. They are ninth in the WNBA standings and have not made the playoffs since 2020. The franchise won league championships in 2001, 2002 and 2016.

Paige Bueckers of Dallas was the AP player of the week. The guard averaged 23.7 points, 7.7 assists and 6.3 rebounds to help the Wings win all three of their games last week. Other players receiving votes included Kelsey Mitchell of Indiana and Janelle Salaun of Golden State.

Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve secured the most regular-season wins in WNBA history with a victory over the Connecticut Sun last week. She broke a tie with Mike Thibault atop the all-time wins list. Reeve had said it was a distraction to her team leading up to the record-breaking win, which took three tries to achieve.

Golden State at Indiana, Wednesday. The Valkyries will close out their road trip with a stop in Indiana to face the Fever, who are returning home after a 3-1 west coast swing. Indiana swept a pair of games from Las Vegas on the trip.

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball