{"id":262787,"date":"2025-11-05T06:55:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T06:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/262787\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T06:55:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T06:55:09","slug":"in-toronto-sandy-brondello-getting-what-she-didnt-from-liberty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/262787\/","title":{"rendered":"In Toronto, Sandy Brondello getting what she didn’t from Liberty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sandy Brondello emerged Tuesday morning like a professional wrestler returning after a brief hiatus as she made her first appearance as the head coach of the Toronto Tempo, her trademark grin plastered across her face.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the place I wanted to be,\u201d Brondello said. \u201cTo build a team from the ground up, that really excited me.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s only part of why Brondello stood at the podium in Toronto on this day.<\/p>\n

Throughout her 30-plus minute news conference, Brondello repeated several themes: Partnership, collaboration and alignment with the suits upstairs being the main ones \u2014 all things that by the end of her tenure in New York may have deteriorated.<\/p>\n

But in Toronto, Brondello\u2019s third stop as a WNBA head coach<\/a>, she\u2019ll have a true fresh start.<\/p>\n

\u201cSandy is a builder. She is a teacher. She is a winner,\u201d Tempo general manager Monica Wright Rogers said. \u201cShe leads with humility, clarity and care. Qualities that elevate an entire organization from rookies to veterans, from locker room to the front office.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NewSandy Brondello of the New York Liberty looks on during the game against the Seattle Storm on July 6, 2025. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Tempo\u2019s coaching search started in mid-July, but took an unexpected turn once Brondello became available Sept. 23, just days after the Liberty\u2019s title defense ended with a first-round exit in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

New York\u2019s decision to move on from Brondello a year after she delivered the franchise its first championship may have appeared cruel from the outside. But a growing disconnect between the front office and Brondello became increasingly more apparent as the season wore on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just felt that it probably wasn\u2019t the right fit anymore, to be quite honest,\u201d Brondello said on a recent episode of Sue Bird\u2019s \u201cBird\u2019s Eye View\u201d podcast<\/a>. \u201cAnd obviously, it was a leadership decision there. And I work best when I\u2019m in a partnership.\u201d<\/p>\n

After her firing, it wasn\u2019t a question of whether Brondello would get another WNBA job, but with whom.<\/p>\n

\"NewNew York Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello instructs a play during the first quarter against the Los Angeles Sparks at Crypto.com Arena. Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

As Wright Rogers noted, \u201cYou would be unwise not to try and land her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brondello received job offers from Seattle, Dallas and Toronto. She ultimately felt most aligned with the Tempo.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end, it was more about the partnership,\u201d said Brondello, who shared a mutual best friend with Wright Rogers. \u201cI knew of her, just the kind of person that she is and how she goes about her day to day and that was important for me. I thought there was a lot of alignment there and feeling comfortable in this next opportunity that I was going to take and that was the partnership, the collaboration and that we all talked about and the vision of this franchise. I think there was just, it felt right.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Brondello gets the rare opportunity to help construct a team from start to finish, though everything is on hold \u2014 from the Toronto and Portland expansion drafts to free agency and the college draft \u2014 until the WNBA and players union agree on a new collective bargaining agreement.<\/p>\n

Brondello\u2019s relationships with players and overall reputation around the league should bode well for the Tempo with regard to attracting free agents. She said the roster building process \u201cwill be a collaboration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what really excites me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCovering the Liberty like never before\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Madeline Kenney’s Inside the Liberty, a weekly Sports+ newsletter.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

While Brondello settles into her new team, her former employer is still seeking her replacement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Liberty are the only team left without a head coach, though the interview process is believed to be nearing the end. Former Nets assistant coach Will Weaver and Mercury associate head coach Kristi Toliver are candidates for the job.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Brondello, the Liberty\u2019s all-time winningest head coach and a two-time WNBA champion, plans to bring that success to the True North.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is to bring a championship to Toronto,\u201d Brondello said. \u201cThat hasn\u2019t changed. My narrative hasn\u2019t changed. I like winning. It\u2019s fun, but I also know it\u2019s hard. And we\u2019ll go to work about, you know, starting from the ground up and building the right culture and adding the right players and making sure that we continue to work together so we can put the best product out on the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sandy Brondello emerged Tuesday morning like a professional wrestler returning after a brief hiatus as she made her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,7079,3457,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-262787","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-liberty","11":"tag-new-york-liberty","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}