The Liberty have drifted in and out of the W.N.B.A. spotlight, but the opportunity to draft Oregon’s Sabrina Ionescu could be just what the team needs to right itself.

Mason Trinca for The New York Times

For the Liberty, a tumultuous decade that put the franchise’s future in doubt has given rise to a team that is new in almost every way imaginable.

A new owner: Joe Tsai, not James L. Dolan. A new home: Barclays Center, after a long run at Madison Square Garden and a two-year exile to the Westchester County Center in the northern suburbs of New York, far from the fan base. And after the W.N.B.A. draft on Friday night, probably a new franchise star: Oregon’s Sabrina Ionescu, not Tina Charles, the veteran All-Star the team traded to the Washington Mystics this week.