Consequential injuries to the New York Liberty’s top three players defined their 2025 season, which ended for them last Friday with a 79-73 loss to the Phoenix Mercury in their best-of-three opening round playoff series. On Tuesday, it cost Sandy Brandello her job.
After leading the Liberty to the franchise’s first-ever WNBA championship last October and being celebrated with a ticker-tape parade down the famed Canyon of Heroes in Manhattan, Brondello was fired following four seasons at the helm.
“We would like to thank Sandy Brondello for her everlasting impact,” GM Jonathan Kolb said in a press release. “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.”
There is already speculation that the Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire, two expansion teams that will begin play next season, are eyeing Brondello as their head coach.
After starting the season 9-0, Liberty center and 2024 WNBA Finals MVP Jonquel Jones missed 13 games with a right ankle sprain. Forward Breanna Stewart, a three-time WNBA champion and two-time WNBA regular-season and finals MVP, missed 13 straight games after suffering a bone bruise in her right knee. Superstar guard Sabrina Ionescu missed six games late in the season with a left toe injury. The resulting impact was the team played average basketball for the duration of the season, finishing 18-17 the remainder of the regular season and falling from first overall in the standings to the No. 5 seed when the playoffs began.
In the postseason, Stewart suffered an MCL sprain in her left knee during New York’s 76-69 Game 1 road win against the No. 4 seed Mercury. The Liberty then were embarrassed in Game 2 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, 86-60 before being eliminated in Phoenix. The 26-point home loss last Wednesday, with a chance to advance to the WNBA semifinals, did not leave a great impression on the fans or management.
Critics are justified in comparing the Liberty to the No. 6 seed Indiana Fever, who are in the semifinals and defeated the No. 2 seed Las Vegas Aces in Game 1 (Game 2 was Tuesday night) of their best-of-five series. The Fever have overcome multiple players sustaining season-ending injuries, notably superstar guard Caitlin Clark who appeared in only 13 games, as well as key rotation players, guards Aari McDonald and Sophie Cunningham.
Stewart, Jones and Ionescu will all be unrestricted free agents this offseason, meaning each could sign with another team, but both Stewart and Ionescu expressed a desire to return.
“Well, I’m coming back,” Stewart firmly said last week.
“I mean, the team never looks the same every single year, and I think that’s what’s really special about what you have in your locker room,” Ionescu said. “You can never really replicate that year in and year out …You know you can’t just want to be a part of it when you’re on top and enjoying a parade and popping champagne bottles, like you have to be able to continue to commit and want to be the best for this organization, and I’m excited for next year.
“… I think you have to cherish those years where everything seems to be going well, like you’re healthy, you have the players out there, and this year just wasn’t our year.”
Only time will tell who will return for the Liberty in the 2026 season, but Brondello will not be one of them.