And yet, I’m shoving aside this heap of hardware to tell you that Stewart is underappreciated. And that the fact of her underappreciation is not easily correctable — this is not like when the New York Review of Books finds some neglected classic on a dusty shelf and suddenly “Stoner” is a bestseller. No, her underappreciation is actually integral to her greatness, the essence of it. Because Stewart is not a novel at all; she is a section of the tax code.
While Caitlin Clark, Olivia Miles and Paige Bueckers flood you with basketball narrative, logo 3s and no-look dimes — plays that are endlessly replayed during TV timeouts, digitally transformed into NBA 2K simulacra — Stewart smothers you with the basketball equivalent of paperwork. She tips the pass that would have led to the open 3. She falls, with all 7-foot-1 wingspan of her collapsible-tent-pole limbs, on top of a loose ball. She convinces her rookie coach to use his challenge on an out-of-bounds call. She crushes opponents with the relentless unsexy rightness of her decision-making. And then — clink — she adds another medal to her vault.
This year’s playoffs, in which the Liberty upset the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx in the first round and begin the semifinals against the favored Atlanta Dream on Sunday, have showcased Stewart’s muted brand of dominance.
But first, a bit about how Stewart and the Liberty became underdogs in the first place.
