Liberty GM Says Sandy Brondello Contract Decision Was 'Proactive' Move to Help Team

New York Liberty general manager Jonathan Kolb said the organization was being "proactive" when it moved on from head coach Sandy Brondello.

"These decisions mark fork-in-the-road moments for organizations," he told reporters Thursday. "You can stand still or you can embrace change and move forward, and my commitment is to keep pushing the New York Liberty to new heights."

Kolb also denied the decision was driven solely by the Liberty's fifth-place finish in the regular season and a first-round playoff exit.

"This is not a results-based organization," he said. "This is not about not winning or winning. It's about how do we position ourselves to be at the top of the league in a real sustainable way as the league evolves."

Those comments are a little at odds with what ESPN's Alexa Philippou reported at the time of Brondello's ouster. She wrote that "Liberty brass considered nothing short of a championship to be a success this season."

Brondello has more wins (107) and a better winning percentage (.669) than any other coach in Liberty history. She took New York to the 2023 WNBA Finals before delivering the franchise's first title in 2024.

Moving on from a coach with that kind of success is obviously a bold call, but Kolb may not have been wrong for thinking Brondello's tenure had run its course.

In the 2023 Finals, the Liberty lost in four games to a Las Vegas Aces squad that didn't have two-time MVP Candace Parker and watched six-time All-Star Chelsea Gray suffer an injury in Game 3. That was a winnable series for New York, and it couldn't get the job done.

Last year, the Liberty went the distance with the Minnesota Lynx in the Finals and needed overtime to prevail in the winner-take-all Game 5. Lynx guard Kayla McBride had a good look as time expired in regulation, and Brondello may not have made it to 2025 if that shot went down.

Losing in the first round was—if not the sole reason—the final straw for Kolb.

Of course, firing the head coach is the easy part. Identifying an upgrade is much trickier.

The stakes couldn't be much higher for New York with all of the team's big stars hitting free agency. Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones and Sabrina Ionescu will be following the coaching search closely.