Forward Satou Sabally received the green light to make her Liberty debut Thursday night against the Golden State Valkyries.
Sabally, the Liberty’s biggest outside free agent signing this offseason, missed New York’s two preseason games because of reconditioning purposes.
On the eve of the season opener, the team revealed that Sabally was sidelined with a cyst.
Sabally returned to practice Monday and has been ramping up since.
While it can be a challenge to get back into game shape, Sabally said after shootaround she felt “pretty good.”
“I’ll do whatever I can and whatever’s asked of me,” Sabally said. “… It’s also just about really enjoying my minutes out here, and I feel like what happened to me [the concussion in last year’s WNBA Finals] can be really traumatic in a way of — OK, how do you want to play the game? And my emphasis on this year is just really having joy and just really enjoying the hard plays, the hard games.”
Coach Chris DeMarco anticipates Sabally to play around 20 minutes.
“I honestly just want to see her play,” he said. “It’s hard right now. We haven’t seen her with the lineup she’s going to be playing with, obviously this is her first game. So just get out there, start to feel comfortable, like no pressure. We’ll just kind of see how the game flows.”
Sabally’s return comes just two days after the Liberty waived forward Aubrey Griffin, whom the team signed to a hardship contract May 8 because of the onslaught of absences.
While Sabally is back, Sabrina Ionescu’s season debut is delayed for yet another game.
“She looks good,” DeMarco said. “It’s really about the recovery and how she’s feeling later in the day and the next day. And so yeah, we’re really close there and we’re happy with her progress.”
Betnijah Laney-Hamilton was also ruled out for a personal matter.
The Liberty are also expected to welcome Raquel Carrera and Leonie Fiebich into the mix in the coming days after the two won a Spanish League title with Valencia.
Carrera was at shootaround in the morning.
DeMarco didn’t have an immediate timeline for when Carrera or Fiebich will be available to play.
