{"id":227589,"date":"2025-10-15T22:58:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T22:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/227589\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T22:58:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T22:58:12","slug":"former-liberty-assistant-lands-job-while-wife-ex-coach-sandy-brondello-remains-on-the-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/227589\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Liberty assistant lands job while wife, ex-coach Sandy Brondello remains on the market"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Liberty assistant coach Olaf Lange has landed a new gig, while his wife and former New York head coach Sandy Brondello<\/a> remains on the job hunt.<\/p>\n

Lange has been named the head coach of the German women\u2019s national team, the German Basketball Federation announced Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The job will reunite Lange with 2024 WNBA champions Leonie Fiebich and Nyara Sabally.<\/p>\n

It also potentially sets the stage for Lange and Brondello, the coach of the Australian Opals women\u2019s national team, to coach against one another at next year\u2019s World Cup.<\/p>\n

What this means for Lange\u2019s future in the WNBA remains uncertain. It\u2019s not unusual for national team coaches to also have other jobs, including WNBA gigs.<\/p>\n

Former Liberty assistant Olaf Lange. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Brondello, who coaches the Australian women\u2019s national team, is still deciding what her next step will be after the Liberty ousted her last month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All four WNBA teams with head coaching vacancies \u2013 the Seattle Storm, Dallas Wings, Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo \u2013 reached out to Brondello to gauge her interest.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s considered to be in the pool of finalists for the Toronto job, sources said.<\/p>\n

Portland is expected to name Cavaliers assistant coach Alex Sarama as the franchise\u2019s first head coach in the coming days after a Fire employee leaked a graphic in a since-deleted LinkedIn post, according to Front Office Sports.<\/p>\n

Former Liberty coach Sandy Brondello. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Lange, a native of Berlin, has decades of coaching experience.<\/p>\n

This will be his second stint coaching the German women\u2019s national team after he held the role from 2001-03.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

He joined Brondello in New York in 2022 after the two coached against one another in the 2021 WNBA Finals when he was with the Sky and she led the Mercury.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lange also previously served as an assistant on Brondello\u2019s staff with the Australian Opals since 2019.<\/p>\n

Olaf Lange (c) on the Brooklyn bench. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Brondello is one of the most decorated and experienced WNBA coaches on the market.<\/p>\n

The former WNBA guard was a long-time assistant with the San Antonio Stars and Los Angeles Sparks before she got her first WNBA head coaching position with the Phoenix Mercury.<\/p>\n

Brondello spent eight years in Phoenix taking the Mercury to two WNBA Finals and won it all in 2014.<\/p>\n

She led the Liberty to back-to-back WNBA Finals in 2023 and 2024 and delivered the franchise its first professional basketball championship in decades one year ago.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Liberty\u2019s title defense was marred with injury and ultimately fell flat. They went 27-17, finishing in fifth place, and were bounced from the first round of the playoffs.<\/p>\n

General manager Jonathan Kolb decided a change was needed, and the Liberty\u2019s coaching search remains ongoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Liberty assistant coach Olaf Lange has landed a new gig, while his wife and former New York…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[436,99,434],"class_list":["post-227589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-new-york-liberty","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}