Jonquel Jones sits in the New York Liberty locker room and she is asked a question about dreams. Jones smiles in the way she does. It’s a smile that’s confident, one buoyed by a WNBA championship and series MVP, but it’s also a welcoming smile. She is one of those athletes who wants you to understand her world and how far she’s come, and she wants to make sure you know – that you really, really know – she’s not done yet.

Many athletes did what Jones did as a kid. Dreamed of playing basketball. Dreamed of being a star. The practices, the games. More practices, more games. More dreams.

But most, maybe 99% of the people who try, don’t get this far. Jones did.

“You play basketball in the driveway … and you dream about being a champion and you make scenarios up and count down and shot clock and shoot the game-winning shots and different stuff like that,” Jones says. “And so you dream about this moment as a younger child, a younger kid, but there’s so much work in between dreaming and actually making it happen. And so to actually have everything come to fruition, it means a lot.”

What exactly was it that came to fruition? Jones’ WNBA career had been on a steady track upward for the past few years – she was the league MVP in 2021. Last season, however, it was like she was on the bridge of a starship.

The Liberty won the WNBA championship, and Jones was named the Finals MVP after scoring 17 points in the penultimate Game 5 overtime contest. It established her as a top-tier force in the sport.

“Mindset going into the Finals was just to do everything that needed to be done, not to get too high or get too low, and kind of treat that last game the same way I’ve been treating the entire season,” she says, “which is to just stay even-keel and try to manage my emotions as best as possible, and just win the possession, and then ultimately win the quarter and then win the game. And so just not getting too big and letting the moment just get too much bigger than me. And I think that was just the focus going into that game.”

Jones is one of USA TODAY’s Women of the Year selections not solely because of her basketball prowess, but also because of her great humanity. She fits neatly into a WNBA that has been fighting for civil rights since its birth. She talks proudly about her Black queerness and how that pride crosses borders into her native Bahamas.

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“I mean obviously I’m from a very Christian nation,” she says. “I’m from a place where there’s not a lot of people that look like me, that dress like me, that have the sexual preference that I do. And so for me it was really tough to find myself and figure out exactly who I was and then to also live that truth.

“But I think for me, the best way to really break those barriers is just being myself, being unapologetic about it and being open and speaking about it. And a lot of times I try to take the high road and not really say things when I feel like people are kind of saying things or kind of attacking my character. But I think that where I am now with my maturity level and who I am as a person, I feel way more comfortable being able to use my platform to speak out against those things, to voice how I feel and to also just let other kids that were like me when I was growing up, just know that there’s someone out there that represents them and that there is success, there is happiness, there is joy.”

But back to those basketball dreams. Jones has also become a recognizable star around New York and a crowd favorite with Liberty fans.

Her appeal goes beyond American shores. Jones tells the story of a woman who greeted her in the Bahamas not long after she won the title and the series MVP.

“I think I was at home in the Bahamas and this lady came to me, and she’s like, ‘Girl, I was pulling and cheering for you in the championship, and when they called your name, it was MVP. I was smacking my TV so hard, I (broke) my TV,’” Jones remembers. “So she was just talking about how she needed a new flat screen TV because she was just so excited with everything.

“And I think that’s the energy and something that sticks out to me is just that so many people have been pulling and cheering for me. And a lot of times in life, sometimes you get too caught up on people that are kind of pulling against you and you forget about all the people … that are cheering for you and that are in your corner. And so it’s good to focus on the right things and the people that are really just pushing you towards your goals.”

Yes, she’s reached many of those dreams. But Jones is far from done. Not even close.