The Guru’s WNBA Report: Philly’s Natasha Cloud Bringing Sunshine in New York to the WNBA Champion Liberty As Season 29 Looms on the Horizon

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

BROOKLYN, N.Y.  — The calendar says it’s May, nearing the onset of summer and one week away from the real opening of the 29th WNBA season when wins and losses the rest of the way become part of the historical record.

But here at  the Barclay Center, home of the first-time defending league champion New York  Liberty, for WNBA veteran and Saint Joseph’s alum Natasha Cloud, Friday night it was Christmas, as she formally began play in her third different team uniform following a long term career with the Washington Mystics and a very much shorter one with the Phoenix Mercury.

Forget that the geographical rival Connecticut Sun handled New York in the Liberty’s initial 2025 preseason game 94-86 here or that Cloud’s stats in 13 minutes, 34 seconds showed connection on her only shot taken, with three assists, a steal, and four of the home team’s 18 turnovers.

For one, multi-career MVP Breanna Stewart had the night off recuperating from offseason surgery, which is like sending a supersonic jet down the runway without one of its engines functioning.

This was about the first fitting of the glass slipper to enable an eventual dominating effort for New York to do it all over again.

The Liberty, after acquiring Cloud from a short offseason time with Connecticut, said she had always been a target of how they envisioned their system in pursuing a championship.

And New York had become a dream for the one-time Hawks playmaker where she is even closer to home especially after spending last summer across the country in the Southwestern desert city.

With Stewie, Sabrina Ionescu, and Jonquel Jones part of the offense, Cloud isn’t the frontier scout to lead a return to the promised land for a second straight season.

It’s more about being the substance glue in the offense after Courtney Vandersloot signed a free agent deal to return to the Chicago Sky and Kayla Thornton was an expansion draft pick from Golden State.

 Cloud was as effusive and bubbly as ever Friday after the game like the feeling opening gifts under the tree Christmas morning.

Especially the way she fitted nicely with Ionescu playing the first half before the subs were given their chances the rest of the way.

On this Monday night, by the way, Ionescu follows Indiana’s Caitlin Clark and Chicago’s Angel Reese recent homecomings in returning to her glory collegiate days at Oregon’s Matthew Knight Arena in Eugene when the Liberty play their second preseason game ahead of next weekend’s opener.

Ask to compare her new team, which is coming off the title, to the Washington winners in 2019, Cloud smiled as the Delco native of Broomall began ticking the similarities.

“There’s a lot,” she said. “We are so versatile. We are so deep. We have the best bench in the league. The thing here is the basketball. No matter what names are on the roster, we’re going to play the right way, find the right names. That’s refreshing and kind of what we did in Washington.

“There’s a lot of weapons on the offensive end and you’re going to have to choose to defend.”