A season after her team won the WNBA title, the New York Liberty have fired head coach Sandy Brondello.
The Liberty, who finished 27-17 in the regular season and were the No. 5 seed in the postseason, lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Phoenix Mercury.
After eight years as Mercury coach, in which she led the team to a championship, Brondello was hired by the Liberty ahead of the 2022 WNBA season. The Liberty had two straight 32-8 seasons in 2023 and 2024, winning the title last season over the Minnesota Lynx.
“We would like to thank Sandy Brondello for her everlasting impact on the New York Liberty,” Liberty general manager Jonathan Kolb said in a statement. “Sandy finishes her tenure in New York as the winningest coach in franchise history, and she took us to never-before-seen heights as the first head coach to lead the Liberty to a championship. We wish Sandy the very best in her next chapter.”
What led up to Sandy Brondello’s firing? Injuries plagued Liberty
The Liberty started the 2025 season on a nine-game win streak and were in second place in the WNBA standings with a 14-6 record heading into the All-Star break. But then adversity hit in the form of injuries.
Every member of team’s Big 3 – Jonquel Jones, Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu – missed time. Jones was out almost two weeks with a sprained ankle. Then, another month when she aggravated the injury. Stewart missed a month with a bone bruise and Ionescu four games with a toe injury.
That’s not to mention, Natasha Cloud missing a game after breaking her nose and Nyara Sabally sitting out with ongoing knee issues. Leonie Fiebich avoided time on the DL, but she missed almost a month while playing for Germany at EuroBasket.
Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu stand up for Brondello ahead of firing
The news isn’t likely to go over well with Liberty players, who stood up for their coach after being beaten in the first round of the playoffs by the Phoenix Mercury.
‘To anybody that questions Sandy being here, this is a resilient group and she has our back and we have hers,’ Stewart said. ‘The way she continued to deal with the cards she was dealt was incredible. 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 positions possible and best foot forward.’
Ionescu pointed to injuries as the reason the Liberty were unable to recapture their championship success.
‘You’ve got to cherish those years where everything seems to be going well, you’re healthy, you’ve got your players out there,’ she said. ‘This year just wasn’t our year with that. That’s something out of our control. We can sleep at night knowing we did everything we could with the opportunities that we had. It just didn’t fall our way with injuries.’
The organization will begin the search for its next head coach immediately.