Jonquel Jones Showed Up at the Wrong Brooklyn Apartment on Moving Day

Jonquel Jones at the top of the Empire State Building in 2023. Photo: Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Empire State Realty Trust

The New York Liberty look unstoppable right now — number-one seed in the playoffs; a growing, obsessive fanbase as they pursue the franchise’s first-ever title; and a mascot with her own Times “Styles” profile. They also have Jonquel Jones, the team’s six-foot-six power forward who signed with the team last year along with stars Breanna Stewart and Courtney Vandersloot. It’s still early days for Jones in the city, so we caught up to talk about moving to downtown Brooklyn, becoming a local celebrity, and, critically, how her dogs have adjusted to high-rise life.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

I came to New York last year because I understood that New York was a big market and that the New York Liberty were one of the WNBA’s original franchises. They had never won a championship, but had some really great players coming through the ranks. And with a coach like Sandy and the players already in place like Sabrina Ionescu — me, Stewie, and Sloot knew we could do something really huge if we all decided to come together and play in New York.

Jones with her fiancé at her first Broadway show. Photo: Jonquel Jones

I was coming from a smaller team, the Connecticut Sun at the Mohegan Sun, and it’s a lot of trees and a lot of green. I moved to downtown Brooklyn and I’m not going to lie, when I first came down here I was very much overwhelmed. I put in the wrong address and arrived at some brownstone. My dogs were like, “Are we here?”

When I first walked into my apartment I was like, wow. I’d never been in an apartment that had a doorman and a mailroom. I’ve been in bigger apartments, but never a high-rise. I just remember walking through the place, being in awe, having a view of the Verrazano Bridge, the Statue of Liberty. One of the things that I was worried about coming here, with having two dogs, was: Is it going to be enough space? Am I going to be comfortable? Now I know that if I want to go sit in the grass and read a book and be in nature, I can go to Prospect Park or Fort Greene Park. Sometimes I ride my OneWheel, which is like an electric skateboard, there. When I first got here I remember walking to Fort Greene park and sending a video to Courtney Vandersloot being like, “Look, it’s only a few blocks away and you’ll be able to walk your dog here. You don’t have to worry.” I literally was pitching everything to her. I think I’m a good recruiter, but I was just showing her that she could kind of find those pockets in those places where she can feel comfortable as well.

Jones at a Girls & Women in Sport community clinic in 2023. Photo: Jessie Alcheh/Courtesy New York Liberty

I really appreciate just the fact that in a way, even though it’s a city and life should be more hectic, it actually isn’t. The convenience of being able to walk out of your apartment and go to the bodega or meet up with some of your teammates to get a coffee and not having to jump in a car just adds a more personal level to your lifestyle. It becomes a little bit more simple to be able to just go outside and do things a little bit more freely. If I want a really nice brunch, my spot is Le Petit Café. I like Evelina. I have a friend in Harlem, so I go there a lot and I like a spot called Ricardo, a steakhouse. I do end up DoorDashing a lot because of the time that our games are so I still need to branch out and find other places.

Jones with her family and fiancé in 2023. Photo: Jonquel Jones

Jones at a restaurant in Brooklyn in 2024. Photo: Jonquel Jones

I would say that nothing can really prepare you for just how much New Yorkers love basketball and how tuned in they are. We walk our dogs outside and people are like, “Good game last night!” You start to kind of build a community. That was one of the things I wasn’t expecting coming here. I understood that New York is a big basketball city and people really love the game and all of that. You see it in documentaries, you hear it all the time on TV. But you don’t really understand it until you’re actually living it. And when you’re a part of a really successful team and people are really behind the team and they want that championship and they feel the energy — I don’t think it caught me off guard, but it was just really surprising. It’s like, dang, everywhere I go, people are just like, “You need that championship!” When I go read at the park, there’ll be little kids that are out there playing and they’ll come up to me while I’m reading my book and be like, “My mom brought me to the game and you actually play for the New York Liberty, oh my God.”

Jones and her fiancé’s dogs, Rylo and Kiba — one of which has a street unofficially named after him. Photo: Jonquel Jones

If you had spoken to me when I was a little kid, if you had spoken to me when I first got drafted in the league, there was nothing in me that would’ve ever been like, “Oh, I’m going to be living in New York City.” It’s kind of one of those dreams that you didn’t know you had. My dogs are definitely adjusting. Most times now they’re with my fiancé in Georgia but when we first got to New York, it was bad. My dogs were looking at me, “Are we supposed to pee and poop on this car?” They didn’t know what to do. One of them, the first three days he didn’t poop. And I’m like, dude, there’s no way you don’t have to poop. We found a little tree-lined street that wasn’t too far away from us and we started calling it Rylo Street, after my dog, because that was the only street for maybe two and a half weeks where he would poop. To this day we call it Rylo Street.