The New York Liberty are firmly in the middle of a season that’s been plagued by injuries, essentially giving the team flashbacks to its 2025 campaign. After taking home the WNBA title in 2024, they still finished the injury-plagued season with a 27-17 record. However, the current state of the Liberty is much more dire.
The team currently sits with a 13-12 record and heads into a road game against an impressive Dallas Wings squad led by Paige Bueckers, who’ll actually miss Monday’s game due to a head injury. However, the Liberty is currently without three names, including Satou Sabally and Leonie Fiebich. Recent starter Marine Johannes was initially listed as a game-time decision due to an ankle injury, but there’s been some bad news on that front.
Brutal Timing for Johannes’ Injury
The good news? The Liberty got Sabrina Ionescu back from injury after missing the early part of the season. The bad news? That injury bug isn’t going away.
Johannes, who had started 17 of 25 games this season while averaging career-highs in field goal attempts, three-point attempts and rebounds, will miss Monday’s game against the Wings. She’s fresh off a game in which she scored 12 points while knocking down 4-of-11 attempts from beyond the arc in 18 minutes, and losing her outside shooting will be a hit for the Liberty.
Johannes has posted marks of 9.4 points, 2.8 assists, and 2.6 rebounds per game; losing the French guard for any extended period would be a massive blow. The glass-half-full perspective, however, is that if Johannes was indeed a game-time decision throughout the early part of Monday, that could bode well for her potential return timeline.
A Shrinking Depth Chart
Furthermore, the team's official injury report lists two players who have been sidelined for multiple weeks. Worst of all? Both Sabally and Fiebich averaged north of 10 points per game, with the latter averaging nearly 30 minutes per game (29.1). Specifically in the lead-up to her injury, Fiebich had logged 30-plus minutes in five consecutive games, but has been sidelined since July 3 with a foot injury.
As for Sabally, who suffered a concussion on June 23, she had been a key additional scoring piece for the Liberty, specifically when coming off the bench. Regardless of her starting five of 13 games played, she’s posted marks of 10.4 points and 2.8 rebounds while shooting a career-best 45.9% from the field.
Regardless of how you view the injuries, the Liberty are pushing to hold the No. 3 spot in the Eastern Conference, with the Washington Mystics just a half-game behind. And when you factor in that nearly 30 points per game are missing from the lineup on Monday against the Wings, it’s far less than ideal.
If there is a positive takeaway from all this, it’s that the absence of Bueckers has been significant on the betting line for Monday’s matchup. The Liberty are listed as five-point favorites in a game that’s still projected to see plenty of scoring, with an over/under of 175 on Fanatics Sportsbook.
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