New York Liberty re-sign key playmaker and shot creator Marine Johannès 

“It is a special opportunity to add Marine — who believed in our vision since 2019 – to a team once again competing for a title,” Liberty general manager Jonathan Kolb said in a team press release. “Marine’s floor spacing and dynamic ability to create scoring opportunities for herself and others will add another dimension to our offense in 2025.”

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Johannès signed a one-year deal on a player minimum worth $66,079 for the season, a league source confirmed to The Next. While this will be Johannès’ fourth total season wearing a New York Liberty jersey, she didn’t sign the veteran minimum worth $78,831 for players with 3+ years of service in the WNBA. This is because not all of Johannès’ total years with the Liberty counted as full years of service in the WNBA.

According to the fine print of the 2020 Collective Bargaining Agreement, a “year of service” isn’t awarded to a player under contract when they withhold “playing services” for more than 21 days after the season begins. Johannès arrived in mid-July for her first year playing for the Liberty back in 2019 after she competed in the FIBA EuroBasket tournament for Team France. The 2019 season began on May 24, and Johannès made her debut around two months later. 

Johannès holds great significance in Liberty history as she was the first player that Kolb signed ever as GM. Don’t forget when she threw an unforgettable pass that helped the Liberty get their first playoff win in seven seasons, and her clutch performance in the 2023 Commissioner’s Cup Final that helped the Liberty win their first trophy as a WNBA franchise.  Her no-look passes, one-legged threes and goofy persona have solidified herself as a Liberty fan-favorite. 

But amid that history, her return to New York in 2025 wasn’t always a foregone conclusion. I previously reported that there was a possibility that Johannès could have been included in potential trade packages. She had been an off-limits player in the trade market since she set foot in the WNBA, but that changed this past winter. New York tried to move up in this year’s draft, and there were some discussions that included Johannès in a trade package, but those talks didn’t advance to the finish line. 

During that winter period Johannès herself had some doubts about what her role could be in New York in 2025. While she enjoyed playing on the Liberty’s first iteration of their “super team” back in 2023, it was a difficult year for the French guard. 

It was a challenge to figure out her role alongside Breanna Stewart and Courtney Vandersloot, who had played together for years overseas. There were moments in 2023 when Johannès’ confidence lowered simply because it was difficult to know how she could be herself in the Liberty’s offense. When did she need to defer to Stewart and Vandersloot? That uncertainty led to some passive play back in 2023. Johannès played with more comfort when she was next to Sabrina Ionescu and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, two players she had played with before.

Even with Vandersloot going back to the Chicago Sky for 2025, Johannès had doubts about where she fit with the now defending champs. Those questions and uncertainties were put to rest after the free agency dust settled. Kolb and head coach Sandy Brondello, a coach that has historically encouraged Johannès to be herself, both spoke to Johannès about the role they would like her to have in defending their 2024 title. 

It will be an important one, especially with not much known still about the status of Laney-Hamilton, who left 3×3 league Unrivaled with another injury. While New York traded for Cloud, shot creation and the ability to space the floor are not her specialty. It will be up to Johannès to take some of the offensive pressure off Ionescu in the backcourt.

What will be different about 2025 compared to 2023 for Johannès will be the very fact that she’s played with the Liberty’s big three in Stewart, Ionescu and Jonquel Jones before. And this year she’ll be able to work out some of the rust in most likely a full training camp. 

This will be Johannès’ first WNBA training camp after years of coming late to the WNBA season because of her international seasons playing for French clubs that went on long into May. 

Johannès will come back to the United States after playing for Turkish Club CBK Mersin. In recent years, Turkey has become a prime destination that allows players to get paid well while also adhering to WNBA prioritization rules. If Mersin makes it to the Turkish League Finals after playing also in the EuroLeague playoffs, their season could end near the final full week of April. WNBA training camps open on Sunday April 27.

While Johannès most likely will participate in a full Liberty training camp, she’ll have to miss a lot of the month of June as she’s expected to leave the Liberty to play for the French National Team in FIBA EuroBasket, the biennial international tournament played between European national teams that helps determine Olympic qualification. 

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Johannès didn’t partake in EuroBasket two years ago as she famously chose to play for the Liberty and follow the rules of the WNBA CBA instead of adhering to the strict demands from the French Federation when it came to pre-tournament preparation. 

As a result of her defiance and bravery, the French Federation didn’t select her for their EuroBasket final roster all because she wanted to also honor her commitment to the Liberty. Since that fallout and following a silver medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics, the French Federation has changed its tune. A September 9 report from French sports tabloid L’Équipe revealed that French players will now be allowed to play in the WNBA prior to international competitions like EuroBasket. 

Part of Johannès’ legacy in the WNBA beyond her flashy passes and one-legged treys will be how she paved the way for more French players to want more from their careers. She showed other French players that they can build a career in the greatest women’s basketball league in the world, and that their careers don’t have to just run through the country of France. French players now have a place in the WNBA and that wouldn’t be without Johannès. 

The current state of the Liberty’s salary cap

Now that Johannès has officially signed, New York has one big hole left in its roster to fill and that’s officially re-signing 3x champion and 2x league MVP Breanna Stewart. 

Part of the wait when it came to signing both Johannès and Stewart was the Cloud trade. Adding on Cloud’s $200,000 2025 salary was going to determine how much Johannès and Stewart could get off the salary cap. Stewart is currently still in Unrivaled’s home base Miami leading her second annual Stewie 30 Elite Camp for the nation’s best high school players.

Assuming that Kennedy Burke, Rebekah Gardner and Isabelle Harrison all make the final roster in addition to Johannès, the Liberty will have $209,533 in total cap space. This also assumes that the Liberty will roster 12 rather than 11. 

As of now Ionescu is the Liberty’s top earning player with a 2025 salary of $208,060. It remains to be seen how much being the top paid player on the Liberty means to Stewart. 

While New York could just give Stewart the full $209,533, there’s a risk in doing that especially when the Liberty will face the absences of Johannès, Nyara Sabally and Leonie Fiebich when they are away from the team in the month of June for EuroBasket. If the Liberty decide to give Stewart around $209,000, then New York most likely will only be able to roster 11 players to start the season rather than 12. 

The Liberty’s 2025 roster is starting to shape up after a slow and sluggish winter. After signing Johannès, New York could have even more reliable depth than they had in the year they won the franchise’s first championship. 

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