Firing Sandy Brondello is an overreaction the Liberty will come to regret originally appeared on The Sporting News
In parting ways with head coach Sandy Brondello on Tuesday, the New York Liberty have ignored the wishes of its star player and threaten to return to an era of instability, less than a year after celebrating the franchise’s peak moment: a win in the 2024 WNBA Finals.
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There is no doubt that this was a challenging season in New York. After reaching consecutive Finals series and winning their first championship together, Brondello and the Liberty expected to repeat in 2025 — especially after starting the season 9-0.
But injuries to each member of New York’s Big Three — Sabrina Ionescu, Jonquel Jones and Breanna Stewart — saw the Liberty use more starting lineups than any other season in franchise history. After the 9-0 start, New York went 18-17 the rest of the way and finished fifth in the standings — which saw the Liberty drawn against the Phoenix Mercury, without home-court advantage, in the first round.
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After losing Games 2 and 3 of that series to suffer a surprising postseason elimination, Stewart and Ionescu strongly backed Brondello to remain in the job. But general manager Jonathan Kolb is going in another direction, making Brondello the fifth female WNBA head coach to lose her job in the past year.
Sandy Brondello is a winner. A two-time WNBA champion, Brondello has a career coaching record of 271-181 with six seasons of at least 20 wins under her belt; only Minnesota’s Cheryl Reeve has more wins among active head coaches. Brondello immediately becomes a candidate to replace Noelle Quinn as the next head coach of the Seattle Storm, which has the only current job opening in The W.
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Time will tell as to whether the Liberty’s decision proves to be a stroke of genius that prolongs its WNBA dominance, or a shortsighted choice that kneecaps the team’s potential to continue winning. New York will be taking a risk on its next coaching hire — a risk that already feels unnecessary, given the polished resume of the person that the franchise just fired.
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