For Natasha Cloud, ‘a point guard’s dream’ comes true in her New York Liberty debut

NEW YORK — Natasha Cloud knew it wasn’t her place to be part of the New York Liberty’s first WNBA title celebration on Sunday, with another deafening crowd at the team’s season opener.

But no one needed telling why the Broomall native, from Cardinal O’Hara High and St. Joseph’s, was there for the occasion.

In her 11th season as a pro, Cloud is finally on a team where she long believed she’d end up. Now, she gets to try to make the reigning champions even better.

“Sometimes I just look around, I walk into the arena — I’m like, ‘This is so crazy this is my life,’” she said. “So definitely, still, this is a pinch-me moment, especially when I didn’t think that I was going to be here in the offseason. But just really thankful to be standing where my feet are today. I have a lot of gratitude.”

That was a reference to being traded twice over the winter, first to the Connecticut Sun in early February. It was part of a four-team, 13-player blockbuster spanning her Phoenix Mercury, the Sun, the Dallas Wings, and the Indiana Fever. But she didn’t want to go to Connecticut — and didn’t hide it.

Six weeks later, the Liberty got her out. For a team that lost veteran Courtney Vandersloot in free agency, there couldn’t have been a better replacement.

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Cloud presumed it would take her some time to get settled in with her new team, but it sure didn’t look that way Saturday. She was the centerpiece of a 92-78 win over the Las Vegas Aces: 22 points, nine assists, six rebounds, three steals, and two blocks in 33 minutes on the floor.

“In training camp, everyone was kind of giving me the confidence that I’ve got to go and I’ve got to be myself,” Cloud said. “That’s the responsibility that I take for myself as a point guard: if I’m not being aggressive and trying to get to the basket, then I’m not really effective for this team. But once I’m aggressive in the beginning, I can get to what I ultimately want, which is to set my teammates up for easy shots.”

Those teammates happen to be some of the game’s biggest stars: Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones, and Sabrina Ionescu, plus great floor-spreaders in Leonie Fiebich, Marine Johannès, and Kennedy Burke.

“It’s a point guard’s dream to be able to play with this many weapons around you,” said Cloud, who played with Ionescu in the winter during the Unrivaled three-on-three league.

Before the game, Cloud was greeted with a big cheer when the video board spotlighted her in pregame warm-ups. She responded with a little dance, pointing at herself as if to say “For me?”

Yes, it was, and there’s a bit of irony in that. She spent the first nine years of her career in Washington, leading the Mystics to the 2019 title and becoming one of the team’s most familiar faces. Liberty fans got to know her well too, but as an opponent — and naturally, not always a liked one.

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Cloud faced New York in the 2015, 2017, and 2023 playoffs, including a second-round upset in 2017 and a 33-point game in a losing effort in 2023.

Now she’s on the other side, and Liberty coach Sandy Brondello is thrilled.

“My first conversation [with her] once we finally got that trade for her was, ‘Coach, I’ll do whatever you need for me to do,’” Cloud said. “And I said, ‘I want you to come and be you, because you’re adding something to us’ — just the way that she plays, her ability to get to the rim, the pressure that she can put on opposing players. … The energy that she brings, the positivity that she brings, you love being around that.”

Cloud didn’t mind watching everyone else in the ring ceremony. They got to feel what she felt when she and Elena Delle Donne won the Mystics’ first title in 2019 — but that team didn’t get a full celebration. The city couldn’t get a parade together before some players left for winter ball in Europe, and the pandemic struck before the next season started.

It came up in practice a few days earlier, and the fact that Cloud spoke there says as much as anything about her role as a leader.

“I said it in our culture meeting the other day,” she said. “A lot of times in this profession, we look past the prayers that we’re living in, right? We’re standing in a lot of our answered prayers today.”

She knew that New York had waited decades, as everyone did, and she emphasized knowing how many players had won their first titles.

“For me as an outsider, even watching them win last year and to see how big it was for the city,” Cloud said. “To win its first ever for an organization, for Stewie to come home to New York and do it, those are all big things. For Sab to win her first one, JJ [Jonquel Jones], who has been going after it for all these years, you can’t help but be happy for your teammates, right? And when you’re happy for your teammates and you celebrate them, I always feel like good karma’s going to come back around.”

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If Cloud keeps playing this well, good karma will probably be back pretty quickly.

“I want them to embrace where their feet are, embrace these moments,” she said, “and then as soon as it’s over, we’ve got to go start our track for another one.”

The usual array of courtside celebrities showed up for the occasion, and so did two names familiar to the Liberty and Philadelphia women’s basketball fans.

Yolanda Laney was there to watch Betnijah Laney-Hamilton get her ring, though she didn’t play due to a long-term meniscus injury; and Temple women’s basketball coach Diane Richardson was there for Jonquel Jones, her adopted daughter. Jones’ family from the Bahamas was also in attendance.

“It was awesome watching her,” Richardson said of last year’s Finals MVP. “I was with her last night, and I know she was anxious about it. But to see her get those humongous rings was awesome, and it almost brought a tear to my eye knowing how far she’s come.”

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