After a first-round exit from the WNBA playoffs, the New York Liberty were faced with an earlier-than-expected decision about their future. After entering the season with championship expectations, the Liberty fell short and announced on Tuesday that coach Sandy Brondello’s contract would not be renewed following her four seasons in New York.
Brondello’s success was undeniable, achieving record win totals for one of the league’s few remaining original teams, and she led New York to its first WNBA Finals appearance in 21 years in 2023. In 2024, she coached the Liberty to their first championship.
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Yet Brondello’s dismissal was not completely surprising to league insiders. Even after winning last year’s title, Brondello and the Liberty agreed to an extension that guaranteed only one more season, and included a team option for 2026, sources said. That lack of long-term job security is often an indication of an organization’s assessment of a coach.
Rumors swirled about Brondello hot-seat status last year before New York won the title. Injuries stymied the Liberty’s chance at a repeat this summer, as they went just 27-17 before being ousted by the Phoenix Mercury in a three-game series. Brondello, of course, can’t be blamed for her players’ ailments, but the injuries revealed other shortcomings: lapses in defensive effort, lack of offensive flow and 3-point output, and struggles to help star center Jonquel Jones be more consistent (she scored only 17 points in three postseason games, including only three in the Game 3 defeat). Even Brondello had said that despite the merry-go-round of New York lineups, players didn’t compete hard enough at times.
Though a coaching change so soon after a championship is rare in the WNBA, New York is following a recent trend in professional basketball of swift changes even in the aftermath of success. The Los Angeles Lakers fired coach Frank Vogel two seasons after their 2020 NBA championship, the Milwaukee Bucks let go of Mike Budenholzer two years after their 2021 title, and the Denver Nuggets parted ways with coach Mike Malone this past spring, not even two full years after their 2023 win. The Liberty consider themselves as a premier organization, and general manager Jonathan Kolb has proven unafraid to make big changes. This is just the latest.
Brondello and the Mercury mutually parted ways after she led them to the 2021 WNBA Finals, so an exit after achieving success few coaches reach isn’t exactly new for her either. Should she want to coach next season, multiple sources expect her to be a candidate for openings in Seattle, Toronto and Portland.
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The Liberty said their search for a replacement would begin immediately, and multiple league sources told The Athletic they expect New York to swing big, likely looking strongly at NBA coaches. Potential top women’s college basketball coaches might also be in play.
Here are six possible candidates:
Will Weaver, Charlotte Hornets coaching advisor
Weaver, 41, fits the profile of a candidate who might want to make the leap from the NBA and receive interest from the Liberty. He is a coaching advisor with the Charlotte Hornets, but he has more than a decade of coaching experience as an assistant and head coach. He worked with the Brooklyn Nets — the brother organization of the Liberty — from 2016-18 as an assistant and later became the head coach of the Nets’ G League affiliate. In 2023-24, after serving as the head coach of Paris Basketball (a European club with NBA ties to former Minnesota Timberwolves GM David Kahn), he returned to Brooklyn for another season as an assistant.
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Weaver is well-regarded inside the Liberty’s parent organization, Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment. He views Nets general manager Sean Marks as one of his key influences. Weaver has drawn praise from colleagues for his tactical acumen and told The Athletic in 2021 that the San Antonio Spurs are influential to how he thinks about team-building. He has adapted to different leagues (he has coached in Australia in addition to France), and though a move to the WNBA would require another transition, an increasing number of WNBA franchises are looking to the NBA for potential head coach candidates.
Jenny Boucek, Indiana Pacers assistant
Boueck has playing and coaching experience in the WNBA. She was the head coach of the Sacramento Monarchs from 2007-2009 and the Seattle Storm from 2015-17, going as far as the WNBA semifinals. Since leaving the WNBA, she has gained valuable NBA experience, currently leading the Pacers’ aggressive defense. Boucek is also highly regarded for her player development acumen and her creativity in late-game situations.
Pacers coach Rick Carlisle told ESPN in June that Boucek is on the path to becoming the NBA’s first woman head coach. “Not only because of her knowledge but because of her ability to build relationships, her ability to listen and her humility,” he said.
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A return to the WNBA would be similar to Becky Hammon, who was hired by the Las Vegas Aces job after seven seasons as an assistant with the San Antonio Spurs. Boucek would be a candidate for multiple openings if she’s open to coaching in the WNBA. She is close friends with Brondello and Brondello’s husband, Liberty assistant coach Olaf Lange, so perhaps their relationship would preclude her from accepting an offer from the Liberty, but she would remain an option nevertheless.
Kristi Toliver, Phoenix Mercury assistant
Toliver is one of the WNBA’s most highly-regarded assistants and is expected to receive a head job in upcoming cycles. A former 14-year WNBA veteran, Toliver has four years of experience on NBA staffs and has spent the past two years in Phoenix under Nate Tibbetts, who was previously an NBA assistant. Toliver, who has never been a head coach, has interviewed for past WNBA head coach roles, and Tibbetts has sung her praises.
“She’s ready,” Tibbetts said last week. “I think she had opportunities last year and most teams didn’t make the right decision in my opinion. I think the beauty of where (Toliver) is is she’s taking pride in being a great assistant and when the time comes, it comes. She’s got a great basketball mind. She’s got the ultimate respect of the players in this league, which is so important, and her time will come, she just needs one team to give her a chance.”
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Niele Ivey, Notre Dame head coach
Perhaps Ivey wouldn’t leave her alma mater to jump to the WNBA, but the Liberty would be smart to at least inquire about her interest. Like Brondello, Ivey was a WNBA player in the early aughts and her background as a player served her well in connecting with her current players across various levels of basketball. Ivey also coached in the NBA, serving a season with the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies before returning to Notre Dame as a head coach. The Irish haven’t made a Final Four in her tenure, but they have been to four Sweet 16s and won 24 or more games each season.
As The Athletic wrote last year, for years, noncompetitive WNBA coaching salaries and a relative lack of job security led to a depressed pool of candidates who wanted to stick it out in the WNBA. But ownership groups around the league are investing more in their franchises than ever before, with coach compensation increasing significantly, even from what it was five years ago.
Hammon and Tibbetts are believed to be the only two WNBA coaches who earn $1 million annually, and it’s hard to imagine Ivey jumping to the WNBA for anything less than seven figures. But the opportunity to potentially coach Sabrina Ionescu, Breanna Stewart, and Jones Jones is rare, and if she has any interest in jumping to the top league in women’s basketball, few would be more lucrative or ripe with championship-caliber talent than the Liberty.
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Lindsey Harding, Los Angeles Lakers assistant
Like Toliver, Boucek and Ivey, Harding has experience as a WNBA player who later transitioned to an NBA sideline. Harding joined the Sacramento Kings’ staff in 2022 and is currently with the Lakers under coach J.J. Redick. Harding was a successful head coach with the Stockton Kings winning the 2023-24 NBA G League Coach of the Year. She interviewed for the Charlotte Hornets’ head coach opening before the Lakers hired her. Among WNBA circles, Harding is viewed as another potential WNBA-coach-in-waiting, should she want to rejoin the league.
Sonia Raman, Liberty assistant
If the Liberty want to stay in-house, then Raman can’t be ruled out. Raman, who is also a viable candidate for the Seattle Storm and Portland Fire opening, has a wide-range of coaching experience as an assistant and head coach. She spent four years with the Grizzlies and led Division III MIT for more than a decade. Kolb and Brondello brought her into the organization this year as an assistant, knowing that she had previously interviewed for multiple WNBA head coaching positions. No matter how New York’s opening is filled, Raman remains among the leading candidates for head coach jobs around the league, but familiarity with the Liberty’s core players would surely be a huge plus for her.
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This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
New York Liberty, WNBA
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