New York Liberty Finish Prolonged Head Coach Search by Touchdown This NBA Assistant

The New York Liberty will deliver on Golden State Warriors assistant Chris DeMarco to function its new head coach.

Down by the Bay, the New York Liberty reportedly discovered its new head coach. 

Per Shams Charania of ESPN, the Liberty will identify present Golden State Warriors assistant Chris DeMarco the tenth head coach in franchise historical past. The 40-year-old DeMarco succeeds Sandy Brondello and can tackle his first home head teaching job.

DeMarco has been stationed with the Warriors franchise since 2012, starting of their video and scouting departments earlier than shifting onto the bench. The Wisconsin native and former Division III athlete at Edgewood Faculty has partly overseen every of the staff’s 4 championship runs in that span, the newest coming in 2022.

He’s the most recent former Steve Kerr assistant to land a serious head teaching gig, an inventory that additionally consists of Alvin Gentry, Willie Inexperienced, Luke Walton, and Steve Nash, the lattermost of whom served because the boss of the Liberty’s NBA roommates, the Brooklyn Nets. As a holdover from Mark Jackson’s earlier regime, DeMarco was retained by Kerr and earned a private advice to remain from staff administration simply earlier than their new-century run of prosperity started.

DeMarco Brings NBA and Worldwide Expertise to Brooklyn

Although DeMarco is taking over his first WNBA job, his prior experiences ought to enchantment to Liberty franchise faces Sabrina Ionescu and Jonquel Jones.

Ionescu, a Bay Space native from Walnut Creek, is shut pals with fellow deep-shooting legend and Warriors franchise face Stephen Curry, who known as DeMarco as “a part of the core” of the Warriors’ championship period in a 2021 video from the staff.

DeMarco’s prior head-coaching expertise had him main the Bahamas’ males’s nationwide staff, which can little question intrigue the Freeport native Jones, who has routinely spoken about increasing the sport in her residence nation. Below DeMarco’s watch, the Bahaman staff (that includes NBAers like DeAndre Ayton, V.J. Edgecombe, Eric Gordon, and Buddy Hield) positioned second at its 2024 Males’s Olympic Qualifying Event in Valencia, falling one step in need of its first Olympic displaying.

Liberty Look to Bounce Again with Demarco

DeMarco faces a tall job in Brooklyn: the Liberty is trying to find redemption after its first postseason championship fell in need of expectations, because the follow-up to its 2024 title noticed it place fifth on the WNBA playoff bracket. That led New York to bid farewell to prior boss Brondello after 4 seasons and a franchise-record 107 wins. Brondello has since been named the pinnacle coach of, satirically sufficient, the growth Toronto Tempo.

Whereas New York’s roster scenario, like these of their WNBA sisters, is clearly in flux because of the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the league’s collective bargaining settlement, basic supervisor Jonathan Kolb has the “utmost confidence” that headliners Ionescu, Jones, and Breanna Stewart would return to Brooklyn.

Presently underneath contract is worldwide sensation Leonie Fiebich, who established herself as a beginning 5 staple through the 2024 championship run, and her fellow German and Finals heroine Nyara Sabally, who noticed her personal follow-up derailed by accidents. New York endured a number of medically-induced exits through the 2025 marketing campaign, as Ionescu, Jones, Sabally, Stewart, and season-long absence Betnijah Laney-Hamilton all missed important time resulting from numerous illnesses.

Time will inform how, or if, DeMarco finishes out his present duties within the Bay Space, the place the Warriors (9-8) are set to face the Portland Path Blazers on Friday night time (10 p.m. ET, NBC Sports activities Bay Space). The Warriors are due in Brooklyn to face the Nets on Dec. 29.

Geoff Magliocchetti is on X @GeoffJMags