It’s been a rough summer for New York sports fans, but they still have women’s basketball

The Yankees and Mets have failed to meet their fans’ expectations and both teams will likely miss the playoffs.

In football, the Giants were shut out in their first game against the Dallas Cowboys, and the Jets lost star quarterback Aaron Rodgers within the first five minutes of their season.

But the New York Liberty are playing in the WNBA playoffs Friday night in Brooklyn.

Myles Ehrlich covers the team for the website Winsider, which focuses on women’s sports. He joined WNYC’s Sean Carlson on "All Things Considered" to discuss the “Libs’” playoff run, their journey to Brooklyn, and if they have a shot at the championship.

Carlson: The Liberty are one of the WNBA's original franchises, but they've never won a championship. Can you tell us a little bit about their history in those early years?

Ehrlich: They had stars like Rebecca Lobo and Teresa Weatherspoon, and they did just come up short. It's not like they weren't a good team at the jump. They made the [Finals] several times and lost to the Houston Comets who came out of the gate winning four in a row. But the influx of energy, especially this season, started a few years back.

Joe Tsai bought the team after James Dolan of the Knicks had marooned the team to Westchester. He just wanted to separate from the Liberty. And then they were in this 1,800 person, tiny little arena, which was really not fair to professional athletes to have to play in.

So then Joe Tsai, who owns the Brooklyn Nets, and his wife, Clara Wu Tsai, who is the governor of the Liberty, they came in. They took on the team, and then 2020 comes, and they are ready to hit the ground running at the Barclays Center, and then COVID happens.

So, it wasn't just that, but it was also that they had to gain the trust of the fanbase again. But, the Tsais, and what they've done since the franchise has moved to Brooklyn, it's not just the oncourt [performance].

This offseason they brought in two former MVPs. It's the culture that they've built. They want these players to have opportunities, because I think that's one of the things that makes New York so special.

And it's been really, really terrific to see the oncourt play, for sure, get better, but also just everything around this team, and this league, which continues to be on the upswing.

They started at MSG, and then they were at Radio City Music Hall, and eventually Westchester County. How did that impact their fan base?

It definitely was a struggle. I mean, everyone that's come through it on the other side will attest to that. James Dolan, obviously, is a character in all of this. So, for the Liberty, there was a real fear that once they moved out of Madison Square Garden, the franchise would wither and disappear.

For that not to happen, and for them to go through a giant rebrand and to bring in a new generation of talent when they drafted Sabrina Ionescu back in 2020 with the first overall pick to bringing Betnijah Laney who had been, at that point, the most improved player, now with Breanna Stewart, with Jonquel Jones, with Courtney Vandersloot.

This has just supplanted anything that the franchise has seen for a couple of decades at this point. And obviously, with this big playoff run still to come, those expectations have brought back a lot of those old fans and also brought in so many new ones, too.

You mentioned how Joe Tsai and Clara Wu Tsai, who run the multinational tech company, Alibaba, swooped in and brought the team to Brooklyn. How did that change the team's fortunes?

It really helps not just the team, but I think the league at large. There have been a couple of situations where both Joe and Clara have gotten into some trouble with the league itself.

One of the largest pushes I would say is that the players don't currently have chartered travel and back in 2021, the Tsais got in trouble because it was found out that they had chartered a couple of flights for that Liberty team.

And they, at the time, were given, I believe it was a $500,000 penalty, which I believe is the largest one in WNBA history. Fast forward to this year at the introductory press conference for Breanna Stewart and Courtney Vandersloot, who are both so outspoken about, we know that our ownership group is invested in pushing the Collective Bargaining Agreement to its limits, but also in taking those penalties.

And you also see what's happening with the Las Vegas Aces and their owner, Mark Davis. He's somebody else who's really invested a lot of money. And I don't think it's a coincidence that right now there's the talk of the super teams. The teams that have been compiled with all these superstar talents. The two that are far above the [other] franchises are the Las Vegas Aces and the New York Liberty.

How likely do you think they are to win it off this year?

It's them and the Aces. These teams played basically to a tie. There were four games in the regular season that counted against the standings and each team won two apiece. I think in just seeing the momentum that has been generated by this new core of veteran experience, I think the Liberty will win the championship this year.