Chris DeMarco Is Out in New York

The New York Liberty fired Chris DeMarco on Tuesday, ending his tenure after a single season. The Associated Press reported the move after ESPN's Alexa Philippou first reported his departure, and the team confirmed it the way teams do now — a farewell post over his picture: "Thank you, Coach DeMarco."

On paper, the season he just coached is the kind most first-year coaches survive. DeMarco arrived in December after more than a decade as an assistant with the Golden State Warriors, with no prior WNBA experience, and took a team two years removed from a championship to a 26–18 record. New York won the Commissioner's Cup in June — the first team ever to win it twice, per ESPN — then limped into the playoffs as the No. 8 seed and did something no 8 seed had ever done: swept the No. 1 seed, Minnesota, out of the first round.

Then Atlanta swept the Liberty right back in the semifinals, and the series turned on a mistake that followed DeMarco out the door. In Game 2, with New York trailing by three late in overtime, the coaching staff did not know it still had a reset timeout left — the possession, and the series, died with it unused. The Associated Press called it a crucial mistake. It is the moment this firing will be remembered by, fairly or not.

The Silence After Game 3

DeMarco said after the final loss that he expected to be back in 2027. His players never said it for him. The AP reported that none of the Liberty's three stars — Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu and Jonquel Jones — offered a definitive vote of confidence after the season ended.

Stewart pointed at the whole 44 games instead: you need to be consistent for the full season, she said, "and I don't think we were consistent throughout the season." Ionescu called DeMarco's future "not our decision." Then, per the AP: "We're thankful for everything that he's done this year." In the language of superstar quotes, that is a goodbye with good manners.

Context matters here, and it cuts in DeMarco's favour: this roster was never whole. Satou Sabally, a three-time All-Star, made only 13 appearances after a concussion in June and never returned, per Bleacher Report, and Stewart carried the heaviest minutes load of her recent career covering the gap. A first-time head coach, a hurt roster, an eighth seed — and still a Cup, a historic upset and a semifinal run. New York fired him anyway, with a year left on his contract.

The Question Isn't DeMarco. It's Kolb.

General manager Jonathan Kolb will now hire his fourth head coach since 2019. The last two searches tell the story of this one.

Kolb did not retain Sandy Brondello after the 2025 season — a coach who had just gone 27–17, one year after delivering the franchise's first championship in 2024 and a Finals run in 2023. Reuters noted DeMarco replaced her and finished with one fewer win. When Brondello went, Kolb said publicly that he had to nail the next hire. The New York Post reported he preached patience with a first-time head coach as recently as April. Six months later, the patience is gone, and so is the hire.

That is the pattern the next coach walks into: a front office that moved on from a title-winning coach to bet on a first-timer, then moved on from the first-timer in twelve months. The roster is not the problem. Stewart, Ionescu and Jones are all under contract for 2027, per Reuters — but Stewart and Jones are both in their thirties, and the championship window this core was assembled for is not waiting on a fourth search to get it right.

The Sports Desk's read: DeMarco's season was flawed — the Game 2 timeout was a genuine coaching failure, and 26–18 with this roster was never going to feel like enough. But firing him after one year, one year after firing the coach who won you a title, stops being a coaching story and becomes a Kolb story. The next hire is the last free swing of the Stewart–Jones window. If this search misses, the seat that should get warm in New York isn't the one on the bench.