The New York Liberty has named Golden State Warriors assistant Chris DeMarco their new head coach. DeMarco is the third coach with NBA ties to be hired as a WNBA head coach this offseason.<\/p>\n
DeMarco spent the past 13 years with the Warriors, where he was part of four NBA championships. Initially a member of Mark Jackson’s staff — hired in 2012 as a video coordinator — DeMarco was the only coach Steve Kerr retained when he took over Golden State in 2015.<\/p>\n
For the past several seasons, DeMarco has primarily been in charge of the Warriors’ defense while also working individually with players such as Klay Thompson and Jordan Poole.<\/p>\n
He’s also the head coach of the men’s Bahamian national team. Liberty forward Jonquel Jones is a member of the women’s Bahamian national team.<\/p>\n
How DeMarco fits with the Liberty<\/p>\n
DeMarco can utilize his experience with Golden State’s long-running stars in New York. Like Stephen Curry’s one-time 3-point shootout opponent, Sabrina Ionescu brings deep range and the ability to run pick-and-roll or be dangerous spotting up without the ball. Ionescu will be looking to bounce back after shooting a career-low 30% beyond the arc last season.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Breanna Stewart’s playmaking and defensive versatility bring parallels to former Defensive Player of the Year Draymond Green. But the Warriors have never had a post-up threat like Jones, giving DeMarco a more threatening option if he imports the split cuts that have been a hallmark of Kerr’s offense. — Kevin Pelton<\/p>\n
The Liberty announced they weren’t renewing Brondello’s contract. She’s out after four seasons, exiting a year after leading New York to the 2024 WNBA title. The Liberty went 27-17 this season and were the No. 5 seed in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Liberty general manager Jonathan Kolb said, “Sandy finishes her tenure in New York as the winningest coach in franchise history, and she took us to never-before-seen heights as the first head coach to lead the Liberty to a championship. We wish Sandy the very best in her next chapter.”<\/p>\n
Brondello, 57, was hired to coach the Liberty in December 2021 and went 107-53 in four seasons. Prior to New York, Brondello coached the Phoenix Mercury from 2014-2021, winning her first WNBA championship in 20214. She had a 150-108 record in eight seasons with Phoenix, making the playoffs every year.<\/p>\n
Brondello also has coached the Australian Olympic team and played in the WNBA from 1998-2003.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Liberty has named Golden State Warriors assistant Chris DeMarco their new head coach. DeMarco is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[134023,49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-298123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-134023","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298123","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=298123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}