{"id":312024,"date":"2025-11-25T03:29:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T03:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/312024\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T03:29:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T03:29:10","slug":"why-the-new-york-liberty-hired-warriors-assistant-chris-demarco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/312024\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the New York Liberty hired Warriors Assistant Chris DeMarco"},"content":{"rendered":"

DeMarco beat out<\/a> former player and current Phoenix Mercury associate head coach Kristi Toliver<\/a>, Toronto Raptors assistant coach Jama Mahlalela, and former Brooklyn Nets assistant Will Weaver for the role.<\/p>\n

DeMarco will become the Liberty\u2019s tenth head coach in franchise history and will succeed Sandy Brondello<\/a> \u2014 both the winningest coach in franchise history and the first to win a championship for the franchise \u2014 who was dismissed<\/a> as head coach after the Liberty fell to the Phoenix Mercury in the first round of the 2025 WNBA playoffs.<\/p>\n

DeMarco\u2019s hiring fits a growing WNBA pattern <\/a>which prioritizes head coaching candidates with NBA experience, which often comes at the expense of expanding diversity across the league. Now, with the Liberty\u2019s opening filled, DeMarco will be one of eight men to be in head coaching roles in the WNBA.<\/p>\n

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For the first time since 2021<\/a>, more men currently lead WNBA teams than women. And DeMarco joins six other WNBA head coaches who all had NBA experience as a prerequisite. He will enter a league that employs nine white head coaches, four men and five women. 2026, with its two expansion teams, will see a WNBA that has six non-white head coaches, and it will also be the first year since 2020 without a Black woman head coach in the league. <\/p>\n

As the WNBA continues to prioritize NBA coaching experience in its search for head coaches, it\u2019s worth noting that this opens up fewer pathways for women than men. The NBA, which had more than 10 women coaching five years ago, no longer boasts those numbers. Around half of the women on this list of trailblazing female coaches in the NBA compiled by ESPN<\/a> have since either moved onto roles in the WNBA or women\u2019s college basketball.<\/p>\n

Lindsey Harding<\/a>, a coach from this list that is still coaching in the NBA, was initially a candidate for the Liberty because of both her former WNBA playing career and her NBA coaching experience. But as she revealed in a story from ESPN\u2019s Dave McMenamin <\/a>earlier this month, she didn\u2019t want to make the switch to the WNBA just yet. She has her eyes set on being the first woman to rise to the top in the NBA, which counters a lot of the public skepticism <\/a> from both Becky Hammon<\/a> and Dawn Staley<\/a> about the viability of a woman breaking the NBA\u2019s glass ceiling.<\/p>\n

While there has been a lot of hoopla surrounding the fact that New York was targeting someone with NBA experience and most likely wouldn\u2019t hire someone without it, simply having NBA experience wouldn\u2019t guarantee someone the role.<\/p>\n

The Liberty dealt with a myriad of injuries and, as a result, endured effort problems<\/a> in 2025; these experiences made clear the must-haves for the head coaching role. The franchise wanted someone who could hold players accountable, manage the personalities and needs of star talent, be flexible and adaptable in a rapidly changing WNBA and manage the high pressure that is required to coach in New York. The Liberty are a franchise that has ownership with sky high expectations, a franchise that desperately wants another championship and desires having a dynastic legacy.<\/p>\n

The Liberty don\u2019t want to be known as a one-hit wonder. <\/p>\n

The impact of DeMarco\u2019s career with the Warriors <\/p>\n

DeMarco comes from a franchise whose successes were anything but short-lived; he has been with the Warriors since before Steve Kerr<\/a> became the team\u2019s head coach. Prior to the Warriors, DeMarco played college basketball at Edgewood College and then at Dominican University while earning his MBA in global management.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s been highly involved and served in a variety of roles within the NBA\u2019s most modern dynasty, where he helped Golden State win four titles in eight years.<\/p>\n

The Warriors\u2019 owner, Joe Lacob, is no stranger to the WNBA. He famously proclaimed that he wanted his WNBA team, the Golden State Valkyries<\/a>, to win a title within the first five years of their existence. If DeMarco gleaned anything from this experience, it\u2019s how to manage high pressure expectations and perform. <\/p>\n

But DeMarco hasn\u2019t just been a part of a pro basketball dynasty. He\u2019s also helped to shape the culture behind it, and has been instrumental in developing trusting relationships with some of the franchise\u2019s most dynamic players and personalities. Draymond Green<\/a>, one of the league\u2019s best defenders with a notoriously fiery personality, has sung DeMarco\u2019s praises publicly since <\/a>he was named New York\u2019s new head coach.<\/p>\n

DeMarco famously held Green accountable<\/a> for his lackluster play during the Warriors 2023 playoff series against the Lakers. The pair had a film session where DeMarco told Green that he didn\u2019t recognize him on the floor during Game 1 and that he was \u201d\u00a0f\u2013king awful, defensively.\u201d As a result, Green stepped up his play and helped the Warriors win the following game.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAt times you get in these locker rooms and you have stars and coaches won\u2019t always challenge,\u201d Green said<\/a> in a 2023 interview with NBC Sports Bay Area. \u201cDeMarco will challenge anybody, from Steph Curry, Klay Thompson<\/a>, myself, Steve [Kerr]. He\u2019ll challenge anyone. He\u2019s not afraid to hear his voice and he\u2019s not afraid to have tough conversations. He\u2019s not afraid of confrontation.\u201d<\/p>\n

This confrontational, solution-oriented personality is what the Liberty want in their head coach. Complacency has been one of the franchise\u2019s most apparent issues ever since Breanna Stewart<\/a> and Jonquel Jones<\/a> arrived in 2023. The franchise needs a voice that can be both challenging and motivational, for stars like Sabrina Ionescu<\/a>, Stewart and Jones.<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer Golden State Warriors assistant coach Chris DeMarco before the game against the Sacramento Kings at Golden 1 Center on April 3, 2022. (Photo Credit: Darren Yamashita | USA TODAY Sports)<\/p>\n

Leading the Bahamas men\u2019s basketball team<\/p>\n

While DeMarco is most known for his role as a Warriors\u2019 trusted assistant and defensive specialist, he has also had notable experience leading a team. In 2019, he was hired as the head coach of the Bahamas Basketball Federation\u2019s men\u2019s national team. DeMarco\u2019s hire came as a result of the recommendation of Buddy Hield<\/a>, one of the NBA\u2019s most known Bahamians.<\/p>\n

Flash forward to August of 2023, when DeMarco led the Bahamas to a berth in the Paris Olympic qualifiers. DeMarco and his team made history, as this was the furthest<\/a> any Bahamas Men\u2019s National team had ever gone in Olympic qualifying. He led a team with limited resources and infrastructure to its first Olympic qualifying tournament, when the Bahamas beat Argentina 82-75 on the road in Argentina. This result would have been completely inconceivable just five years prior.<\/p>\n

DeMarco maximized a group that was led by NBA role players in Hield, Deandre Ayton<\/a> and Eric Gordon<\/a>. This experience, in addition to his work with the Warriors, impressed New York as they went through the interview process with DeMarco.<\/p>\n

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While at the helm of the Bahamian team, DeMarco made sure to hold his players like Hield accountable. Hield told reporter Dalton Johnson a story <\/a>about when DeMarco locked Hield out from the film room after he showed up late.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat showed his leadership of, we\u2019re going to have fun and play around and all those things, but if you can\u2019t be on time and be respectful, I\u2019m not going to give you a trump card and let you in,\u201d Hield explained. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Limitations that DeMarco will need to overcome<\/p>\n

DeMarco clearly knows how to coach basketball and gain the trust of players. But still, he hasn\u2019t coached women\u2019s basketball at either the college or the professional level. This very fact will provide an unavoidable learning curve.<\/p>\n

The New York Liberty can both facilitate DeMarco\u2019s adjustment to the league and help him earn respect around the league and from the fans by surrounding him with a predominantly female staff. If the Liberty want to be part of the solution to the coaching pipeline issues the WNBA continues to deal with, the franchise will consider this.<\/p>\n

DeMarco may not have coached women, but he has experience coaching with them. During his tenure with the Bahamas, he made sure to hire a woman as one of his assistants. He hired Addison Walters, an up-and-coming coach who played Division I college basketball at Stetson University, Santa Clara University and Cal State Bakersfield. Walters, whose father is former NBA player and coach Rex Walters<\/a>, now is an assistant coach<\/a> on the Iowa Wolves, the Minnesota Timberwolves\u2019 G League affiliate. She served as an assistant for the Bahamas men\u2019s national team as recently as for the 2025 FIBA AmeriCup Qualifiers this past February<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Walters is one woman that DeMarco could possibly even bring to New York. But even if his coaching staff is mostly women, that may not be enough. There will need to be at least one person on his bench with years of WNBA institutional knowledge. Black women also need to be heavily considered. And one assistant will have to be a former player, as that\u2019s the only way WNBA teams can have three assistant coaches on their front bench.<\/p>\n

Speaking of women with NBA experience, the Portland Fire<\/a> announced on Monday that they hired Brittni Donaldson, who has an extensive NBA coaching background, to become a dual assistant coach and assistant general manager. While coaching professional basketball, generally, is a significant qualification for a coach, experience in the WNBA, which is very different from the NBA, comes with its own acclimation process. <\/p>\n

The Portland Fire have hired Brittni Donaldson to their basketball operations staff. She will serve dual roles as an assistant coach and an assistant general manager. She has worked in various roles for the Hawks, Pistons and Raptors.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Sean Highkin (@highkin) November 24, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

Even Las Vegas Aces head coach Becky Hammon<\/a>, who played in the WNBA for 15 years and then spent eight years coaching in the NBA, had to adjust back to the league she left when she returned as a head coach. There was a reason why Bill Laimbeer<\/a> stuck around within the Aces organization for a year to help with the transition.<\/p>\n

While the WNBA and the NBA are both two of the top professional leagues in the world, there are clear differences in not only the style of play but also in what\u2019s needed to lead grown women rather than grown men. <\/p>\n

Hammon reflected herself last month on what losing the institutional knowledge in her former assistants Natalie Nakase and Tyler Marsh was like. They are two coaches with NBA backgrounds who had adjusted to the WNBA over the three years they worked under Hammon. Once Marsh and Nakase left to coach their own WNBA teams, Hammon hired a whole new staff around her that had NBA experience and hadn\u2019t yet coached women. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was really on them to learn the league, because they weren\u2019t coming from the women\u2019s side,\u201d Hammon said on Oct. 5. \u201cIt\u2019s a completely different league. You need to know these players, names, tendencies.\u201d Hammon told her new staff to start watching games as soon as they could. <\/p>\n

DeMarco will need to do the same.<\/p>\n

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