{"id":65167,"date":"2024-02-27T21:52:42","date_gmt":"2024-02-28T02:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=65167"},"modified":"2024-02-27T21:53:37","modified_gmt":"2024-02-28T02:53:37","slug":"breanna-stewart-re-signs-with-liberty-on-a-below-max-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/02\/27\/breanna-stewart-re-signs-with-liberty-on-a-below-max-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Breanna Stewart Ready For Championship Run With New Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/wnba\/players\/s\/stewabr01w.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Breanna Stewart<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/liberty.wnba.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New York Liberty<\/a> have reached an agreement on a one-year, non-guaranteed deal worth below the max, according to the Athletic&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ShamsCharania?t=J9MA7ymCdY3UNVZt8EARFA&amp;s=09\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shams Charania<\/a>. Stewart and the Liberty are coming off a runner-up finish losing to the Las Vegas Aces. By re-signing, the Liberty now have one of the best rosters in the WNBA once again.<\/p>\n<h2>Breanna Stewart Re-Signs with Liberty on a Below-Max Deal<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">WNBA Free Agency news: MVP Breanna Stewart has agreed to terms on a one-year, non-guaranteed below-maximum deal to return to the New York Liberty, per sources. Stewart&#8217;s willingness to take less than max allows Liberty to keep intact the starting lineup that reached 2023 Finals. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/bgUmZXq6fK\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/bgUmZXq6fK<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/1762175739602853976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 26, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This deal gives the Liberty financial flexibility. This at the very least, allows them the ability to improve the roster in multiple ways.<\/p>\n<h3>Below Max Deal for Team Flexibility<\/h3>\n<p>The reigning <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/wnba\/news\/2023-wnba-award-winners-breanna-stewart-named-mvp-aja-wilson-wins-defensive-player-of-the-year\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">MVP<\/a> was given a core designation in January. Under the core designation, &#8216;Stew-York&#8217; was only allowed to negotiate a new contract with the Liberty. She had the option to receive the full supermax salary with a one-year core tender but opted for a payout less than the maximum in the team&#8217;s best interests.<\/p>\n<p>Taking the below-maximum deal allows the Liberty to keep their starting lineup intact. They finished the season with a 32-8 record and reached the 2023 WNBA Final.<\/p>\n<p>With Stewart&#8217;s re-signing, the Liberty not only keeps a two-time MVP on their roster but also creates room under the salary cap to bring in more talent. They also have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/wnba\/players\/i\/ionessa01w.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sabrina Ionescu<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/wnba\/players\/j\/jonesjo01w.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jonquel Jones<\/a> under contract.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Breanna Stewart\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/wnba\/2023\/02\/01\/breanna-stewart-liberty-signing-storm-jewell-loyd\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">signed<\/a> with the Liberty during the WNBA free agency period last offseason. She spent the first six seasons of her career with the Seattle Storm.<\/p>\n<p>In her first season with the Liberty, she posted a career-best average of 23 points per game, along with 9.3 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 1.6 blocks, and 1.5 steals, with shooting splits of 46.5% from the field, 35.5% from behind the 3point line and 85.1% from the charity stripe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Breanna Stewart and the New York Liberty have reached an agreement on a one-year, non-guaranteed deal worth below the max, according to the Athletic&#8217;s Shams Charania. Stewart and the Liberty are coming off a runner-up finish losing to the Las Vegas Aces. By re-signing, the Liberty now have one of the best rosters in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5018,"featured_media":65260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,3],"tags":[3153,2958,1632],"class_list":["post-65167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-news","tag-breanna-stewart","tag-new-york-liberty","tag-wnba"],"modified_by":"Zach Kircher","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5018"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}