The Liberty are only the fourth team to achieve this.
Liberty Make WNBA History Against Connecticut Sun originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
The New York Liberty not only improved to 18-10 on the season with their win against the Connecticut Sun on Sunday, but they also made history in the process.
Sabrina Ionescu led the way for New York with 36 points on an efficient 14-of-22 shooting, along with 11 rebounds and four assists. Jonquel Jones added 21 points as New York took the 87-78 victory.
No one from the Sun scored more than 20 points, with Tina Charles leading the team in scoring with 17 points.
New York led by as many as 17 points — taking an 85-68 lead with a little over two minutes remaining in the fourth quarter — before settling for the nine-point win.
Ionescu, Liberty Achieve Rare WNBA Feat
With the result, the Liberty officially bagged win number 500 in the regular season. According to the WNBA, they are only the fourth franchise to ever reach the mark.
The Minnesota Lynx, Los Angeles Sparks and Sun are the only other teams to do it.
Aside from the Liberty, their very own Ionescu also etched her name in the WNBA history books with her performance.
She entered the game with 998 assists throughout six seasons so far in the league, so with her four dimes, she officially breached the 1000-assist mark. She's now the third-fastest player to reach 1000 assists, needing 170 games to do so.
Liberty History and Franchise Wins
The Liberty were one of the founding teams of the WNBA, which started playing in 1997. However, it took 27 years for the franchise to win its first-ever championship, after Ionescu and Breanna Stewart led the team in 2024 against the Minnesota Lynx.
Now, after winning their 500th regular-season game, listed below are the Liberty's wins per season throughout their history.
- 1997: 17 wins
- 1998: 18 wins
- 1999: 18 wins
- 2000: 20 wins
- 2001: 21 wins
- 2002: 18 wins
- 2003: 16 wins
- 2004: 18 wins
- 2005: 18 wins
- 2006: 11 wins
- 2007: 16 wins
- 2008: 19 wins
- 2009: 13 wins
- 2010: 22 wins
- 2011: 19 wins
- 2012: 15 wins
- 2013: 11 wins
- 2014: 15 wins
- 2015: 23 wins
- 2016: 21 wins
- 2017: 22 wins
- 2018: 7 wins
- 2019: 10 wins
- 2020: 2 wins
- 2021: 12 wins
- 2022: 16 wins
- 2023: 32 wins
- 2024: 32 wins
- 2025: 17 wins (active)
The Sparks currently lead the WNBA in franchise wins with 542 victories (at the time of writing) throughout their history. That said, it will take some time and a lot of consistency from the Liberty to catch up to the record.
Related: Face of the WNBA: Five Players Who Challenge Caitlin Clark
This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Aug 3, 2025, where it first appeared.
Category: Basketball
