Liberty dump Sandy Brondello just one year after winning WNBA title

Just one year after leading the Liberty to a breakthrough WNBA championship, Sandy Brondello is out as head coach.

The Liberty parted ways with Brondello, the winningest coach in the franchise’s history, on Tuesday, making the veteran coach the scapegoat for a title defense that fell well short of expectations.

The Liberty got off to a franchise-best start, winning nine straight games, only to stumble over the next three months to finish in fifth place. New York embraced being the underdog but ultimately were bounced in the first round of the playoffs on Sept. 19. 

Moments after the painful Game 3 loss in Phoenix, Brondello said the group was “very disappointed” in the season outcome, but she “couldn’t be more proud” of her players. 

“We faced a lot of adversity this year, which happens in pro sports, but we left it all out there,” Brondello said. “And that’s all you can ask of a team.”

Despite the Liberty’s hot start, New York never resembled the superteam that had reached back-to-back Finals. 

Brondello had to navigate extended injury absences for key players Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones, and Stewart also was compromised by a knee injury in the playoffs after the Liberty won Game 1.

In Game 2, the Liberty got absolutely obliterated in front of their home fans in Brooklyn, which only intensified the heat under Brondello’s seat. 

Ultimately, the Liberty decided to go in a new direction after the team’s premature playoff exit. 

As much as a coach’s rotation decisions and strategy can be picked apart — and Brondello is not immune to some criticism when it comes to those things — there’s more to the job than what happens on the hardwood, especially with a team as stacked and star-studded as the Liberty.

Brondello is an expert people manager, which is part of why she’s so well-respected around the league. 

But Brondello’s seat started to warm up this summer as the Liberty continued to dip in the standings. 

Brondello told The Post at the beginning of September that she was not oblivious to the pressure. 

“In the end, I get it,” she said. “This is a professional organization and the coaches, I know I’ll probably be the first one to blame and that’s OK. That’s fine. I got wide enough shoulders here. … I don’t read any stuff like that. All I can do is just focus on preparing this team and lean into them as much as I can and lead them to the best of my ability.”

After the Liberty’s season-ending defeat, players voiced support of Brondello, with several saying they had her back. 

“The way that she continued to kind of, I don’t know, deal with the cards she was dealt was incredible,” Stewart said of Brondello. “It wasn’t easy for anybody. But she came in every day with a positive attitude and a mindset to put us in our best position possible and best foot forward… She has our back and we have hers.”

Added Natasha Cloud, “Sandy did an amazing job this year of getting us through injuries, keeping us together, staying optimistic and positive. Sandy is one of the winningest coaches in this f–ing league. … Every player loves her. So, I’m holding Sandy’s back. She has my back. She has every one of our backs. There’s a lot of good things that she’s done. There’s a lot of things that we could have done better as a team. But there will never be any finger pointing in this locker room. We’re going to have each other’s back.” 

But that wasn’t enough to save Brondello’s job. 

The search for a replacement is on, and competition will be fierce, considering the Seattle Storm and expansion Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo also are in the hunt for coaches.

Some candidates who immediately come to mind include Liberty assistant Sonia Raman, Fever assistant Brian January and Baylor coach Nikki Collen.

Brondello exits with a 107-53 record in four seasons with the Liberty and after making an indelible mark on the franchise. 

In her first year on the job in 2022, she piloted the team to a 16-20 mark and a playoff berth. The No. 7 seeds took a game off the defending champion Chicago Sky in the first round before getting eliminated.

Her tenure was supercharged in 2023 with the additions of Stewart and Jones to a core that featured Sabrina Ionescu and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton.

The Liberty went 32-8 and captured the in-season Commissioner’s Cup. They advanced to the WNBA Finals, where they lost a heartbreaking four-game series to the Las Vegas Aces.

In 2024, she led the franchise to its first WNBA championship. After claiming the top seed with another 32-8 regular season and getting revenge on the Aces in the semifinals, the Liberty battled past the Minnesota Lynx in five dramatic Finals games to reach the Canyon of Heroes. 

Brondello, 57, a former player in the early days of the WNBA, previously led the Phoenix Mercury for eight seasons, and won a championship there in 2014. She is sixth on the WNBA’s all-time wins list.

Her husband, Olaf Lange, is one of the Liberty’s assistant coaches, and he is likely to exit as well.

If Brondello wants to continue coaching, she likely won’t be out of a job for long.