There should be no debate in the WNBA over who the top two candidates are for Rookie of the Year. There’s also no reason Liberty forward Leonie Fiebich shouldn’t be on the short list for the best of the rest.
Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese have put up better numbers and have undeniably had better seasons. But Fiebich is the only one playing for a team that will finish in the top half of the league and she has become an instrumental part to the New York Liberty rotation.
Fiebich is now 14 for her last 19 from three, dating back seven games and spanning her time as a starter and bench player as Betnijah Laney-Hamilton returned from injury. That has brought her average up to 43% on the season. More importantly, she’s been a consistent source of offense over the last couple weeks while the Liberty have endured a host of shooting woes.
The team put those woes aside on Tuesday night, defeating the Dallas Wings 105-91 on the road in a game that was never really in doubt. Fiebich made three of her five three-point attempts.
Fiebich isn’t your average rookie. She wasn’t playing college basketball just a few months ago; she’s a 24-year-old woman who is an Olympian and was MVP of the Spanish league. She is also mature enough to know in advance that her role in the WNBA would not be what it was overseas.
“It took me a while,” she said of the adjustment. “It's a bit different out here to get used to everything.”
As one would expect, her performances over the first few months were uneven. She made one total three in her first five games before her first double-digit scoring performance in a loss to the Lynx on May 25.
“In the beginning of the season, I don't think people knew that I can shoot the ball so they were giving me some space,” she said.
By June, she started to find consistency. When Laney-Hamilton went down just before the Olympic break, she was ready to break out herself.
After a six-point win over the Atlanta Dream in June, Liberty coach Sandy Brondello pointed out that even when Fiebich isn’t in the starting lineup, she is on the court when the game is decided.
“That’s why she was on the floor at the end of the game,” she said. “Her size, her versatility, and she got those critical steals for us. She didn't just make shots, she created shots.”
On Tuesday, coming off the bench again, she notched her seventh consecutive game with a three-point percentage of 50% or higher, tying the longest such streak for a rookie in WNBA history. It was also her 16th game of making at least half her three-point attempts, also tying a record.
Liberty rookie Leonie Fiebich knows her game
Aside from her scorching three-point shooting, Fiebich has stepped up on defense, highlighted by back-to-back three-steal games against the Storm and Aces at home last week. She’s also comfortable distributing when the shot isn’t there. As someone who plays off the ball, Fiebich has at least one assist in every game she has played since June 30. She had three on Tuesday.
Brondello, who sees Fiebich every day in practice and on gameday, recognizes the all-around quality of her rookie’s game.
“Her ability to knock down threes and to move the ball, to make decisions with the ball, her assists, the skip pass,” she said in July. “And I think she has good poise in that, and in the last game we put her a little bit more in the pick-and-rolls as well.”
It’s difficult trying to get Fiebiech to talk about herself. Asked after Tuesday’s win how she would characterize her game, Brondello and Breanna Stewart, both seated beside her, needed to encourage her to open up about what’s made her so successful.
“Just playing with my teammates, just trying to be in the flow, just seeing what they can do and how I can contribute,” she said.
That means knowing how to put herself in the best position to score.
“I don’t like to force it,” she added. “I don’t like to play one-on-one when I’m just out of the flow.”
In the past week, the Liberty organization has begun its push for individual awards, specifically for Fiebich as part of the WNBA All-Rookie team. That seems to be a lock at this point. And as long as she doesn’t start games down the stretch to make herself ineligible, she also stands a good shot at Sixth Woman of the Year.
“She’s stepping up when we need it,” Bronello said. “But she plays whatever role the team needs.”
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