Fiebich and Sabally win WNBA championship for New York
October 15, 2024
Just as she had done in Game 2 of the WNBA Finals between the New York Liberty and Minnesota Lynx, Leonie Fiebich made a decisive three-pointer when her team needed her.
With the scores level with just 5.2 seconds left in regulation, the decisive Game 5 between New York and Minnesota went to overtime. Fiebich hit a three-pointer seconds into the extra frame to give the Liberty the lead, before German teammate Nyara Sabally extend the Liberty's advantage.
It would be one they never relinquished as the Liberty won their first-ever WNBA championship, ending a run of five previous final appearances without a win. Fiebich and Sabally also made German basketball history, becoming just the second and the third women to win a WNBA championship. Marlies Askamp, who won with the Los Angeles Sparks in 2002, was the first.
Winding road to the WNBA
Fiebich's steep rise essentially came out of nowhere. When the German forward moved to New York Liberty in the offseason, she was very much an unknown quantity, and at first received little attention from her opponents. She took advantage of her freedom on the court, becoming an important part of her team.
"Nobody knew me at the beginning," the 24-year-old told German public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. "That was really cool. I was able to play to my strengths a bit. Nobody knew that I could throw the ball quite well."
The 1.93-meter (6-foot, 4-inch) forward is now a key player for the Liberty.
By the age of 14, Fiebich was playing with the women at her club in the southern state of Bavaria. But it was by no means a direct jump from the small town of Landsberg am Lech to the Big Apple.
"Yes, that sounds like a good storyline, doesn't it?" Fiebich told Deutschlandfunk. "But it wasn't like that. I didn't go from Landsberg to New York. I had many stops in between. The amount of work that went into it was and is very exhausting."
'They had no use for me'
Fiebich was playing for Germany's storied TSV 1880 Wasserburg in 2020 when the Los Angeles Sparks selected her 22nd overall in the WNBA draft. A year later, the Sparks traded her WNBA rights to the Chicago Sky. However, neither team even tried to contact her.
“I don’t think that they had any use for me at that moment," Fiebich recently told the US women's basketball publication Winsidr, "so they acted like I was not part of their organization."
Instead of the WNBA, her career path took her to Les Flammes Carolo Basket in France before a move to the Warwick Senators in Perth, Australia. In 2022 she signed with Basket Zaragoza, where Fiebich was twice named the Spanish league's Most Valuable Player before getting the call from the New York Liberty, who had by then acquired her WNBA rights.
It didn't take long for the German to hit her stride, finishing the regular season on the WNBA All-Rookie Team.
"I've worked my way up: I'm a starter in the playoffs," Fiebich told German public broadcaster ARD. There are "quite a few" Europeans in the WNBA who "hardly get any playing time," she said.
Calm-and-collected team player
Teammates and coaches are delighted by the strong performance from Fiebich, who was one of Germany's best players at the Paris Olympics in July and August.
Liberty star Breanna Stewart describes Fiebich as a team player.
"She just wants to do whatever she can to help this team win," Stewart told Winsidr.
Three-time WNBA All-Star Sabrina Ionescu told Winsidr: "She's probably the best shooter on this team, percentage-wise. For her to be a rookie and to come in and do whatever it is that she needs to do, it’s pretty impressive."
New York coach Sandy Brondello particularly appreciates Fiebich's composure and consistency.
"Nothing fazes her," Brondello told Newsday after the WNBA quarterfinals. "That's what you love about her. Regular season. Playoffs. She brings the same mentality day in and day out."
Even Becky Hammon, coach of the Las Vegas Acers, who lost to the Liberty in the semifinals, is full of praise for the German.
"I love Fiebich, I'm a huge fan of her," Hammon told Sports Illustrated. "She's got length. She's got incredible feel for, like, guarding distance. She's close enough to you where you can't shoot, but far back enough where you can't drive by her."
The numbers back this up: Fiebich sunk 43.3% of her three-point attempts in the regular season. This was the second-best figure for a rookie in the 27-year history of the league. In the finals, she went even better, hitting 46.2% of her three-point attempts.
This article was originally published in German and was updated on October 21, after the Liberty won the WNBA championship.