The New York Liberty have decided to get rid of head coach Chris DeMarco after one season, as first reported Tuesday by ESPN. It may come as a surprise to some, since the eighth-seeded Liberty swept the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx in the first round of this year's WNBA playoffs. Looking at the bigger picture, however, this firing was deserved.
After that historic playoff upset, the Liberty hit their heads on the ceiling in the semifinal round against the Atlanta Dream. New York was swept in three games, but Game 2 ended in controversy because DeMarco did not use his team's reset timeout to set up a good look at a potential game-tying shot. Instead, Breanna Stewart settled for a heave, and her team lost in overtime, 101-98.
After the defeat, both Stewart and DeMarco said the officiating crew incorrectly told them that the Liberty had no timeouts remaining. (Stewart handled most of the explanation, with DeMarco weighing in toward the end.) The WNBA eventually admitted that the refs screwed up, in the most passively worded statement—"a misunderstanding amongst the various parties"—but the league did nothing further to remedy the situation. It merely shifted Fatou Cissoko-Stephens and Kevin Fahy, the two officials in question, to Game 3 of the Valkyries-Aces series, which ended in a less controversial sweep by Golden State. Although the refs deserve the blame there, DeMarco still should have had a coaching staff member assigned to keep track of the timeouts so that he could at least assertively advocate for his own team.
But DeMarco shouldn't be judged by that one incident, since it wasn't really his fault. Instead judge him by the Liberty's regular season. He did nothing to stop the regression that hit the 2025 squad under Sandy Brondello: New York's net rating went from 11.7 in 2024, to 5.2 in 2025, to 3.9 this past year. Sabrina Ionescu missed 12 of the team's first 13 games, and when she was healthy, DeMarco didn't have any success breaking her out of her shooting funk; she shot 29 percent from three for a second straight season. Big free-agent signing Satou Sabally missed most of the season with a concussion, and other injuries left DeMarco to constantly fiddle with lineups, but he could never find one that delivered consistent results.
From the handful of games I attended, New York's head coach looked to be frequently in over his head. There's a fine line between a coach who is vocal and gesticulating, and one who looks like he doesn't know what's happening. Specifically, in the Liberty's 88-77 loss to the Dallas Wings on July 7, DeMarco appeared indecisive on when to use his challenges—or when to call any kind of timeout, really, when the opposing team would go on a scoring run. In critical moments, he would cycle between staring dumbfounded at an official or staring dumbfounded at his bench. His go-to move was a tantrum out of exasperation, and while some coach meltdowns can fire up the team, his rarely did. DeMarco drew five technical fouls this season, the most of any WNBA coach. (Lynne Roberts had four; the Los Angeles Sparks fired her in September.)
Fans are overwhelmingly thrilled that DeMarco's gone, and his own players also didn't seem to have confidence in his abilities. At this year's exit interviews, Stewart, Ionescu, and Jonquel Jones didn't offer a lot of support for bringing back the coach next season. That lack of enthusiasm was a lot different than the year prior, when they expressed shock at the idea of firing Brondello, who was nonetheless fired after the 2025 season.
The Liberty will now look for their third coach in three seasons. The 2024 title has inevitably raised expectations. The Liberty's roster has depth issues that went beyond DeMarco's purview, and "let Stewie handle it" can only go so far as a strategy. If general manager Jonathan Kolb can't find some better complementary pieces, he too might be out the door soon. As for whoever takes this job next, a word of advice: Don't say you've read "every book on the New York Liberty that you can find online."
