CHICAGO — It can take months, even multiple seasons, to determine whether a trade was worth it. Not so for the deal that sent Natasha Cloud to the New York Liberty in the offseason.
Two games in, it’s clear the Liberty are big winners. The rest of the league, not so much.
The addition of Cloud has made the Liberty even better. Which is a scary thought, considering they’re the defending WNBA champions and already had Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu and Jonquel Jones. But Cloud, with her size, versatility and ability to get to the rim, elevates New York’s offense while making the Liberty even more disruptive defensively.
“We’ve never really had someone quite like her,” coach Sandy Brondello said before Thursday night’s game against the Chicago Sky. “When you talk about shot profile and getting to the rim, we have someone now who can really get downhill.
“That certainly adds to what we’re trying to do,” Brondello added.
Cloud leads the Liberty in scoring (20 points) and assists (8.5) through the first two games, and is third in the WNBA in efficiency.
But what really stands out is that New York is shooting 51.5% from the floor and almost 42% from 3-point range while averaging 13 turnovers. The Liberty also lead the league in steals and blocks.
It is, admittedly, a small sample size, and one of New York’s victories was against the Sky, who very much remain a work in progress. But the Liberty opened the season with a thumping of A’ja Wilson and the Las Vegas Aces.
Cloud had 22 points in that one, including two consecutive three-point plays to spark an 8-0 run that broke the game open in the fourth quarter.
“Her home opener was great,” Stewart said. “Her energy is kind of contagious and infectious.”
Cloud makes no secret of how thrilled she is to be in New York. Drafted in the second round by the Mystics, she spent her first eight seasons in Washington. (She took the 2020 season off to advocate for social justice reform.) She won a title in 2019 and, in 2022, led the league in assists and was all-defensive first team.
She went to Phoenix as a free agent last year. But with Diana Taurasi retiring and the Mercury retooling, Cloud was shipped to the Connecticut Sun in February of this year.
The Sun are a perennial playoff contender, but the team has struggled to keep pace with the rest of the league in terms of facilities and amenities. Knowing Cloud had considered New York as a free agent previously and sensing an opportunity, Liberty general manager Jonathan Kolb spent weeks trying to wrest her away from the Sun.
“There was nowhere else that I wanted to be than New York,” said Cloud, who grew up in Philadelphia and played at Saint Joseph’s. “I called my agent and said, ‘If they’re ready for me, I’m really, really ready.’ So when I tell you I appreciate being here, there was a lot of work that went on behind the scenes.”
Cloud said she was grateful Jen Rizzotti and Morgan Tuck, the Sun’s president and GM, respectively, understood that she preferred to be in New York and didn’t try to stand in her way. Especially since the Sun had lost several key players in the off-season.
On March 16, Cloud was traded again, with the Liberty sending the Sun two first-round picks. Connecticut used the first of those to take Aneesah Morrow at No. 7 in the draft and will have the other for next year.
“I’m so happy to be where my feet are today. I’m with one of the top organizations, from off the court to on the court. With everything that happened in the off-season, to be where I am today, I’m just extremely grateful,” Cloud said.
The Liberty’s core is established — duh, they won a title last year — but Cloud quickly found her place within it. It helped that she was teammates with Sabrina Ionescu at Unrivaled, and Cloud fessed up that she’d tried to recruit Stewart to the Mystics.
But mostly it’s because Cloud knows her strengths and her role.
“The biggest thing for me was to just add something that was already a well-oiled machine. And how I do that is just being myself. I’m the dog of the team. I’m the energy,” said Cloud, who does tend to make the Energizer Bunny look like a sloth.
“I’m a big connecting piece,” she added. “They already had a really close environment and close chemistry, and I feel like I just kind of bear hug everybody in.”
It is, again, early. Really early. But if Cloud and the Liberty can be thriving this quickly, imagine what they’ll look like come September and October.
Or don’t if you’re a fan of another team.
‘I know my first game put high expectations,’ Cloud said. ‘I really am just trying to be better each day for this team.’
And in doing so, make the Liberty better.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media: @nrarmour.