The New York Liberty will call Barclays Center their full-time home for the first time in the 2020 WNBA season.

Purchased by Nets owner Joseph Tsai in January 2019, the Liberty played two games in Brooklyn last season while still playing most of their games in White Plains, N.Y.

But now that the Liberty are based solely in Brooklyn, new head coach Walt Hopkins, who was hired in January after serving as an assistant for the Minnesota Lynx since 2017, believes the team's connection to the Brooklyn Nets and star players like Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving will only help in developing the team's young players.

"Any time that you can bridge the two worlds I think it's good for both -- I think they learn from one another," Hopkins said on Monday, answering a question from SNY's Maria Marino. "And I think that's going to be the same type of situation in Brooklyn.

"Our ownership is really good. They're really committed to both franchises and I know that from speaking with Sean Marks with the Nets as their GM, he is really big on collaboration. He talked a lot in this offseason about ways that we can best kind of bridge the two groups, so it's absolutely going to be a consideration for us and something we look to maximize."

The Liberty hold the first pick in the 2020 WNBA Draft (which is still set for April 17), and all signs point toward the Liberty taking University of Oregon star and two-time Wooden Award winner Sabrina Ionescu.

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