Ionescu honors an absent friend

Her shot that gave the Liberty a 2-1 WNBA Finals lead was right out of the Mamba manifesto.

Gianna Bryant would be 18. She might have committed to South Carolina or USC or UCLA or Connecticut by now. She might have found another path to happiness, but it probably would have involved a basketball. She was her father’s girl. She practiced with him, worked out with him, laughed with him, traveled with him, learned from him, and, on Jan. 26, 2020, got into a helicopter with him. Because of that, you don’t hear people wondering where Gianna and Kobe Bryant would be today, and what they would be conquering. It’ s still too soon, too bleak.

We can safely assume that the Bryants would have been watching Game 3 of the WNBA Finals on Wednesday. A lot of people did. Game 2 had lured almost one million viewers, even though Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever are no longer playing. The WNBA no longer cares if its games are going head-to-head against the mighty NFL. This game was played in Minnesota, and It drew 19,521.

The Lynx and the New York Liberty split the first two games in New York, which won 32 of 40 games this season. This was pivotal because the Finals are still only best-of-five, a stubborn anachronism that probably will get changed next year. Here, the Lynx took a 15-point lead in the third quarter. But Breanna Stewart, who has won two more WNBA championships than the Liberty has, went on a 13-point spree and eventually scored 22 in the second half. Just as the Lynx had wiped out a 15-point deficit in Brooklyn to make off with Game 1, the Liberty made a road move that tied it at 77-77. The final possession was in New York’s hands. 

Specifically it was in the hands of Sabrina Ionescu, a first-overall draft pick after she had broken men’s and women’s college records at Oregon. Ionescu leisurely set up a play and then, with serpentine decisiveness, stepped back and released a 28-footer that swished with :01 left. The Liberty won, 80-77, and anyone who watched the Lakers anywhere inside a 20-year period began in 1996 had seen such a thing before.

Ionescu will always be connected with Kobe Bryant. She spoke at Bryant’s memorial service at Staples Center. When they engaged Stephen Curry in a 3-point contest at the All-Star Game, she wore a “Gigi Bryant” bracelet. She became friends with the family while she was playing at Oregon, when she had 24 triple-doubles, twice as many as any man or woman who had ever played the college game. She also was the first player to get to 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds and 1,000 assists.

Kobe was at courtside at USC when Oregon came to town and was enraptured by Ionescu’s game. He included her on his “Detail” series for ESPN, breaking down how she did what she did. “When I say I’ve never seen a player think the game that way, I’m talking male and female,” Bryant said. “I wanted another generation of players to see how she thinks the game.”

The helicopter accident happened on the same day Oregon was playing Oregon State. Ionescu’s father Dan was hoping nobody would tell her until the game was over. But the players saw the news on their phones, in the pre-game locker room. Ionescu played, upon realizing that Kobe would have wanted her to, and the Ducks won. But it’s just as hard to lose a protege than it is to lose an idol, primarily when the protege is just gathering speed.

Bryant’s first three championships all came in uneasy concert with Shaquille O’Neal, and Ionescu has Stewart, Courtney Vandersloot and Jonquel Jones on her side. Stewart, who scored 30 points and 11 rebounds Wednesday, settled for fewer bucks than she was entitled so that the Liberty could also pay Jones. The reins will be loosened when the WNBA begins operating on a new TV deal that will triple its revenue, and there’s a new collective bargaining agreement on the line as well. Someday its players won’t be forced to drag themselves to Europe to make money befitting their accomplishment level. The league made its biggest visibility leap because of Clark, of course, but people have not quit watching because she’s on the sidelines People already knew A’ja Wilson of Las Vegas, the best player in the league, and they also know Ionescu.

However, not enough people recognized her widespread game to vote her onto the first All-WNBA team. She noticed. “That was just a great second team All-WNBA performance,” she said, with a smile and a drop of venom.

Ionescu is familiar with celebrity. She was the national high school player of the year at Miramonte, in the East Bay community of Orinda, Ca. Nike put out a No. 20 Oregon jersey in her honor and it sold out within an hour. When Oregon decided to put out a Mt. Rushmore, Ionescu was up there with Phil Knight, Marcus Mariota and Steve Prefontaine. She was still in school at the time.

She and her twin brother Eddy pushed each other until Sabrina reached orbit. Dan pushed them into basketball because he thought they’d play until they got tired, and then he could hang out on the couch. Talk about unintended consequences. Sabrina and Eddy played fiercely, inside the house and out, and when Dan asked them if they wanted a plastic toy hoop, they said, no, only the real thing would do. So they were in the yard hoisting basketballs underhand, like Rick Barry used to do on the foul line.

But Sabrina distanced herself early and wound up taking the Ionescus on a long summer-ball ride. When she went to Oregon, Dan found himself driving the 511 miles to Eugene to watch each game.

He was operating his limo service at the time. He had escaped Romania shortly after the revolution in 1989. “Democracy was coming and they didn’t know how to do it,” he said. It took six years before his wife and oldest son could come as well.

All along it’s been about winning, and maybe Sabrina understood that at an earlier stage than Kobe did. Dan remembers the days when she played with boys who wouldn’t give her the ball, so she maneuvered herself into taking it, and then passing to them for baskets. She turned down the WNBA the first time so she could help Oregon to win an NCAA title, and they did get to the Final Four. She turned down an invitation to play on Team USA because she had a final chance to win a title with her AAU team.

Sandy Brondello is the coach of the Liberty, When it was time for the last play Wednesday, she knew Stewart had lugged her team back into position. “But I thought, at the right time, this is Sabrina,” she said. “What I love about her is that she backs herself.”

Sometimes the best path to winning comes that way, through one’s own belief, and that’s what Bryant kept trying to tell O’Neal and Phil Jackson and all the rest of us until we saw and listened. He only had to tell Ionescu once.