When the New York Liberty made their pre-game entrance beneath the Barclays Center ahead of the opening game of their WNBA semi-final series against the Las Vegas Aces last month, there was more spirit and swagger on display than at any New York Fashion Week event. Star point guard Sabrina Ionescu was giving quiet luxury in a sage turtleneck and camel-colored blazer. Breanna Stewart, the two-time WNBA Most Valuable Player, called to mind Charli xcx with her black sunglasses and bodacious mane spilling out of a New York or Nowhere baseball hat. But none of them commanded the makeshift catwalk quite like the 5ft 10in long-lashed elephant rocking a zebra-print coat, serving and vamping for her adoring fans with saucy hip-pops and jaunty swings of an umbrella dangling from her wrist.

There are mascots and then there are mascots: those once-in-a-decade unicorns who penetrate the zeitgeist in unpredictable ways. Ellie the Elephant is no brightly colored blob tripping down a court at half-time. She is a dancing phenom – splits and worms and handstands, oh my! – as well as a physical comic genius. Her firecracker energy is synonymous with the rise of a Liberty team that has become the obsession of countless women across the city during their run to the WNBA finals, where they are on the doorstep of becoming the first New York basketball franchise to win a championship in over 50 years.

“Ellie is iconic,” said Claire Abelson, 26, a teacher and Liberty diehard. “She exemplifies Brooklyn and Black excellence.” Martha Nadell, a fiftysomething English professor, was never a big fan of basketball, but now has season tickets. She gets a kick out of watching Ellie hype up the crowd with her just-short-of-dirty dancing while her ever-present handlers stand by, guarding the superstar’s handbag of the day. (Ellie has a vast collection.) “How can you not love a twerking elephant?” said Nadell.

When she’s not getting name-checked by Cardi B or pulling up to Childish Gambino shows, the provocative pachyderm can be seen performing with Lil’ Kim, cracking up Usher with his signature dance moves, or submitting to an LED light therapy facial (in a deft advertorial nod to brand partner Glowbar) for her more than 300,000 followers across social media. While Ellie often wears a black-and-seafoam green Liberty kit (uniform number: 00), her outfits have also included silver miniskirts, door-knocker earrings and a glitzy golden Beyonce-wizardess get-up (it was “Elliyonce” day, after all) complemented by a seemingly bottomless rotation of wigs. Never missing are the Statue of Liberty-inspired tiara, the lengthy tail and the 72-inch braid that she whips around to alternately fierce and coquettish effect. Not since Miss Piggy has a fuzzy creation reached this level of modern womanhood.

Ellie, who is all of four years old, owes a great debt to Shana Stephenson, the Liberty’s chief brand officer. Working with the team’s chief executive, Keia Clarke, Stephenson conceptualized the mascot when the team moved from Madison Square Garden across the East River to the $1bn Barclays Center and Maddie, the golden retriever mascot named after the previous home arena, had to be put down. So Stephenson enlisted a slew of artists to propose sketches for an outer-borough mascot who was an elephant, a tribute to PT Barnum’s great elephant parade across the Brooklyn Bridge in 1884. Criscia Long, the Liberty’s senior director of entertainment who helps coordinate Ellie’s game-day performances, rounded off the all-Black creative team behind what soon would become the most talked-about mascot in professional sports.

It was essential that Ellie embody Brooklyn and, given that she was representing a WNBA team, that she be an ur-woman (fur woman?). “We really wanted Ellie to be feminine,” said Stephenson, who was part of a group of Liberty executives who took to social media and reached out to casting directors to hold auditions, then met with a gamut of local performers who shared their interpretations of what Ellie could be. “We didn’t really share that much information about Ellie, we really wanted them as creatives, as entertainers, as performers, to help us define what a New York Liberty mascot could represent,” she added. “We wanted someone who could dance and entertain and if they had athleticism, that would be fantastic, but it wasn’t necessary.”

That Ellie not feel like a ripoff of other mascots was key. “Some mascots can be dopey or goofy or kind of clumsy,” said Stephenson. “Ellie is sassy. Ellie is friendly. Ellie is entertaining. She’s full of attitude, she’s multi-faceted, and she’s stylish. I would describe Ellie as a fashionista and an athlete and a dancer. She’s that girl.”

Just who that handbag-toting girl is, though, remains a tightly guarded secret. Team officials will not disclose Ellie’s true identity – and insist that the players don’t know either. They will share that Ellie is always played by the same human. A true artist, the mystery performer collaborates on all dimensions of her persona and shenanigans. “Ellie definitely has input on how she shows up,” said Stephenson. “And I love that about Ellie, because she’s not someone that we just dictate to and say: You’re going to wear this or you need to dance to this song. She’s very much involved in the vision.”

Part of that vision includes involving fans of all ages. “Regardless of if you’re a little girl or 45-year-old woman, Ellie is able to connect with you,” said Stephenson. “Our players are so nice and approachable and accessible. And I think that that’s really what makes our team unique. And I think something that makes Ellie special is she has a sense of humor.”

Ellie worked her magic throughout last month’s semi-final opener, eliciting a chorus of “I love you, Ellie!” from a gaggle of women seated in a private box. When Slick Rick came onto the court at half-time to perform his 80s hit Mona Lisa, the flirtatious fashionista was dancing like nobody’s business. When the players returned to the court for the third quarter, Ellie was far from done pumping up the crowd. She strutted from seat to seat and flipped her braid for a star-flecked crowd that included Spike Lee, Jason Sudeikis, Tracy Morgan and celebrity chef Kwame Onwuachi.

“She amps up the energy,” said Dana Nathanson, a 27-year-old Brooklynite and hardcore Liberty fan. “All throughout the game she is running up and down the arena, dancing to Missy Elliott, and she’ll have eight outfit changes.” Aria McManus, a 35-year-old artist and basketball obsessive who runs Downtown Girls, a pickup league for women and nonbinary people, credits Ellie with the Liberty fever that has swept her cohort. “When the Liberty first came to Barclays, there weren’t enough ticket sales so they covered the top seats with a black curtain,” she said. “The games are so fun. It’s very wholesome and spirited and there are so many women and so many little girls. Something about watching Ellie do the splits keeps the energy up – even if they’re losing.”

That hasn’t been a common occurrence for the Liberty of late. After coming up two wins short of the title last October, New York coasted to the WNBA’s best regular-season record to earn the top seed in this year’s playoffs, where they breezed past the the Atlanta Dream and dethroned the two-time defending champion Aces to book a return trip to the finals against the Minnesota Lynx, which tipped off on Thursday night in Brooklyn. It’s a national platform that Ellie will no doubt make her personal Met Gala – she rolled up to Game 1 wearing a custom puffer with Timbs and a Telfar – as the Liberty look to become the first men’s or women’s basketball team from New York to raise a banner since the NBA’s Knicks back in 1973.

Though nobody can say for sure who Ellie is, many of her fans regard her as a queer Black icon. (The occasional voiceover on Ellie’s TikTok and Instagram accounts is reminiscent of Wanda Sykes.) “My friend who had season tickets got close to Ellie and screamed out to her: ‘Are you gay?’” said Agnes Walden, a 29-year-old artist who lives in Brooklyn. “And Ellie turned to her and made the rainbow symbol with her hands.”