Sandy Brondello lifts the lid on Liberty exit: ‘Not as aligned as I would have hoped’ originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Sandy Brondello does not have much time to look back.
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Announced Tuesday as the first head coach in Toronto Tempo history, Brondello represents a major coup for the expansion franchise set to begin play next year. In a new interview with The Athletic’s Ben Pickman, the two-time WNBA championship-winning coach discussed why she chose Toronto — and how her shocking exit from the New York Liberty unfolded.
After leading the Liberty to their first-ever WNBA title in 2024, expectations were through the roof that Brondello would lead New York to another championship in 2025 — especially after a 9-0 start. But injuries and “adversity” took their toll; the Liberty finished the regular season with a good-but-not-great 27-17 record, which amounted to the #5 seed in the playoffs. Once there, the Liberty lost a first-round series to the Phoenix Mercury — where Brondello coached between 2014 and 2021 — and announced they would be changing coaches.
Brondello: I needed a new challenge
In an interview published the day of her introductory press conference in Toronto, Brondello told The Athletic that injuries to each of the Liberty’s “Big Three” of Sabrina Ionescu, Jonquel Jones and Breanna Stewart contributed to a difficult 2025 season in the Big Apple.
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It also made clear to her there she was “not as aligned” with general manager Jonathan Kolb as perhaps she once was.
“We faced a lot of adversity this past year, and it was hard without our main players there,” Brondello explained. “I just kind of thought it was time, probably not as aligned as I would have hoped, and that goes both ways. This is a business, and if they feel I’m not the right person for the job, then that’s fine. That’s a part of the business, and they have to make that decision. And I felt like I needed a new challenge, too.”
As for her new adventure with the Tempo, Brondello now is fully committed to building a “world-class” organization alongside her new boss, general manager Monica Wright Rogers, a two-time WNBA championship-winning guard with the Minnesota Lynx.
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“Monica Wright Rogers is a championship player. You have two former players, in a GM and a head coach role, leading this team forward and making it a world-class franchise,” Brondello said. “We’ve both been on winning teams, we know what that looks like. So now the goal is to get there here.”
