New York Liberty star and 2024 WNBA Finals MVP Jonquel Jones waited a long time before hoisting a championship trophy last October.
She spent the first seven seasons of her pro career with the Connecticut Sun in a tenure that included two WNBA Finals losses — including in 2019 to the Washington Mystics in a thrilling five-game series.
Key to the Mystics’ win that season were series MVP Emma Meesseman and starting guard Natasha Cloud. Six years later, both play with Jones on the Liberty.
Cloud was traded to the team in the offseason, while Meesseman joined the fray just last week after getting her visa to return to the United States from her home in Belgium.
Before New York faced the Connecticut Sun over the weekend, Jones had a message for the two former Mystics teammates.
“I turned to them and I said ‘my greatest heartbreak is now my greatest joy,’ because I lost to them in the championship in 2019, but [I’m] just happy to be able to [say] those are my teammates now,” she said on Tuesday after the Liberty defeated the Dallas Wings, 85-76.
This iteration of the Liberty has only been around for two games, but New York has won both as the trio of Breanna Stewart, Kennedy Burke and Nyara Sabally remain sidelined with injuries.
As Cloud said after the game, Meesseman may be new and may not have had any practice time to adjust to the Liberty, but there’s already plenty of familiarity on the roster.
“At some point or another, all of us have played together at one point,” she said, “whether that's overseas, whether that's Unrivaled with me and [Sabrina Ionescu], [Athletes Unlimited] for me Izzy [Harrison] before this. I feel like basketball is such a small community, but beautiful in its own sense.”
Liberty's Natasha Cloud eyes another title with Emma Meesseman
Cloud was on the other side of Jones’ 2019 heartbreak and she’s looking forward to making another run with her and Meesseman.
While there are always growing pains when a player joins midseason, Meesseman’s adjustment period appeared to last for all of one quarter against the Sun over the weekend. Cloud, for her part, seemed to pick up right where she left off with the former Finals MVP.
“I really do feel truly happy that Emma's here, happy to be around everyone, but that’s an extra set of comfort that I had from my early years in my career, and I know how Emma plays,” Cloud said. “I know when I'm not moving enough for her, so that playing together again is exciting for me as a teammate and as a person too.”
Meesseman’s arrival came at a critical time for the Liberty, who had been spiraling prior to her debut. After appearing to right the ship from a June swoon in which they lost six of nine games, the Liberty dropped one at home then went out on the road and lost three more in a row, including a pair to the two worst teams in the league, the Wings and Sun.
Two days after that Sun loss, Meesseman made her debut in another game in Connecticut and the Liberty won by nine. Two days after that, Meesseman scored 13 as the Liberty avenged the Wings loss.
