Clara Wu Tsai Put Her Money on the New York Liberty. Now, the World is Finally Catching Up to the WNBA.
Clara Wu Tsai is standing in the deliciously designed living room of her elegant Brooklyn town house (shoes off, please), disassembling the drop top of her New York Liberty 2024 WNBA championship ring, when we meet in early March. The walls around her bear works by Lorna Simpson and Rashid Johnson. Wu Tsai, who has shoulder-length black hair and is wearing a Miu Miu polo and a gleaming nameplate necklace, gently pulls apart the ring, a white gold behemoth encrusted with white diamonds, black diamonds, and seafoam Paraíba tourmalines; inside are a pair of gold “NY” stud earrings, a miniature rendering of the home court at the Barclays Center, and the phrase “We All We Got! We All We Need!” It was the team’s de facto slogan that historic year, as the Liberty won its first title since the WNBA was founded nearly 30 years before. The league has, in the last couple of years, come into its own after a series of cosmic cultural events and a vicious union battle that almost threatened to …
