Jackie Powell · NBC Sports Wed, November 4, 2026 at 1:00 AM UTC · 12 min read About Our Ads Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Early on Nov. 3, ESPN's Alexa Philippou reported the news that some New York Liberty fans had been waiting for: head coach Chris DeMarco would not return after one season at the helm for the Liberty.
And just like that, the Liberty are in the same spot they were in 406 days ago when the team fired head coach Sandy Brondello — the only head coach to deliver the original franchise a championship. Brondello is now the head coach of the Toronto Tempo.
Why did DeMarco get canned when he guided the Liberty to the second round of the WNBA playoffs and became the only No. 8 seed to defeat a No.1 seed in the playoffs?
DeMarco couldn't deliver on the the Liberty's clear expectations of getting back to the WNBA Finals and having a shot to win it. Ultimately, his lack of institutional knowledge of the WNBA and inability to connect with professional women's players helped seal his fate.
Below are some ideas for where the New York Liberty could go next when it comes to hiring the 11th coach in franchise history.
Kasib Powell (Golden State Valkyries assistant coach)
Jul 25, 2025; San Francisco, California, USA; Golden State Valkyries head coach Kasib Powell gestures during the second quarter against the Dallas Wings at Chase Center. Mandatory Credit: John Hefti-Imagn Images
Powell, now a WNBA champion with the Golden State Valkyries, has a lot of the qualities that Liberty GM Jonathan Kolb valued a year ago and probably still does. Powell might have been more qualified than DeMarco was a season ago, but I digress. Powell is a former G-league player of the year turned coach. He was the head coach of the Miami Heat's G league affiliate Sioux Falls Skyforce for three seasons before becoming a Heat assistant and then one of Natalie Nakase 's top assistants.
"I needed a coach next to me that had head-coaching experience," Nakase told Bay Area News Group earlier this year about Powell. "He has a very calm presence. He has a great feel in terms of how to deliver really tough messages to the players, and he builds really genuine relationships with the players."
Powell is an excellent communicator and has proven that he can build relationships with not only players, but with media members as well, something critical for being a head coach in New York. After the team won the 2026 WNBA Finals, he told Valkyries beat reporter Kenzo Fukuda exactly what the team's plan was when it came to unleashing Gabby Williams.
Briann January (Indiana Fever assistant coach)
Aug 31, 2025; San Francisco, California, USA; Indiana Fever assistant coach Briann January (right) talks with guard Shey Peddy (5) during the second quarter against the Golden State Valkyries at Chase Center. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
January played in the WNBA for 13 seasons, including her final one alongside Breanna Stewart in Seattle. January was known as one of the most astute defenders in the league, making an All-Defensive team seven times. The Liberty's main bugaboo in 2026 was their lack of defensive consistency and accountability. This is what January built her playing career on and it has carried over to her coaching style. Fans have caught January getting into heated discussions with Fever star Caitlin Clark, but January said she can hold stars accountable.
"At the end of the day, we know [Clark] can be great, and we're not going to let her off the hook," she told ESPN's Katie Barnes.
Fever head coach Stephanie White has said that January's basketball knowledge, communication skills and edge as a competitor are "elite."
"They're going to get their opportunity, and I'm going to be happy and proud of them and for them and sad for myself," White said this past August about both January and her other assistant Austin Kelly .
Honorable mentions: Austin Kelly (Indiana Fever assistant coach), Chelsea Lyles (Atlanta Dream assistant coach) and Roneeka Hodges (Connecticut Sun associate head coach).
White has also lumped her offensive coordinator in Kelly as someone who she sees being a head coach in the WNBA. Kelly designed the league's best offense in 2026.
Lyles, Karl Smesko's most trusted assistant when he was the head coach at FGCU and now in Atlanta, is a dark horse candidate. She is usually the coach with the whiteboard during timeouts and was responsible for drawing a play that was critical in defeating the Liberty in Game 2 of the semifinals when Naz Hillmon scored on a backdoor cut.
Hodges is someone who demands respect from the players she coaches . However, a concern could be that because the Liberty's core group worked with her as an assistant, it would be difficult to make the HC transition with the same group of players rather than a completely new locker room.
As a 2026 WNBA champion, Gabby Williams' story isn't about potential anymore
The lessons that the rest of the WNBA can learn from Gabby Williams, Natalie Nakase and the Golden State Valkyries is that to win a title in this league, having an identity matters.
Jama Mahlalela (Toronto Raptors assistant coach)
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - JULY 17: Summer League head coach Jama Mahlalela of the Toronto Raptors speaks to players on the court against the Utah Jazz in the first half of a 2024 NBA Summer League game at the Thomas & Mack Center on July 17, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Jazz defeated the Raptors 86-76. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Candice Ward/Getty Images)
Mahlalela was a finalist when the Liberty were looking for a head coach a year ago, and the franchise said they liked his energy, organization skills and background as an educator. Like Powell, Mahlalela has been a head coach before for the Raptors G-League affiliate Raptors 905 and has been involved with the Toronto Raptors and Golden State Warriors organizations.
Mahlalela is someone who has a lot of charisma and could earn trust from WNBA players quickly, something that DeMarco struggled mightily with. Could the Liberty pull a Dallas Wings and hire one of their finalists from 2025? It's possible, although do the Liberty want to risk hiring another coach who hasn't coached women's basketball before? I could only see the Liberty doing this if Mahlalela was willing to be collaborative by hiring and trusting a staff that knows the W better than he does, which also was something that plagued DeMarco's tenure.
Honorable mentions: Lindsay Harding (Los Angeles Lakers assistant coach)
Harding was an early candidate for the Liberty in last year's hiring cycle because she possesses qualifications that New York thought were invaluable after the Liberty's departure from Brondello. Harding was a former WNBA player who had a decade long career, and she has G league head coaching experience winning the 2023–24 NBA G League Coach of the Year for her job coaching the Stockton Kings. Could Harding be drawn to the position now especially since the Lakers have her sitting on their back bench rather than on the front?
Golden State Valkyries win 2026 WNBA title in thrilling Game 7 victory over Atlanta Dream
Gabby Williams was named Finals MVP, scoring 30 points in the Valkyries' 68-63 Game 7 win.
Shea Ralph (Vanderbilt women's basketball head coach)
Oct 13, 2026; Birmingham, AL, USA; Vanderbilt Commodores head coach Shea Ralph speaks during the SEC Basketball Tipoff at Grand Bohemian Hotel Mountain Brook. Mandatory Credit: Butch Dill-Imagn Images
Ralph is the current head coach of Vanderbilt women's basketball after spending over a decade as an assistant coach under UConn's Geno Auriemma. Since leaving UConn for Vanderbilt, Ralph has transformed the Commodores into a respected program that can successfully recruit stars, like Mikayla Blakes.
Ralph and Stewart worked together throughout Stewart's four years at UConn.
"Obviously, she's a super competitive person, and she puts in the work as a coach and [in] really just getting the best out of her players, like she did when I was at UConn," Stewart said about Ralph this past March.
By watching any of Ralph's press conferences , it's apparent that she's a gifted communicator who has a vision and knows how to set a culture, something the Liberty were missing in 2026. But the challenge to bring Ralph over to the WNBA might come down to money and if she would leave what she's building with Blakes and Co.
Kara Lawson (Duke women's basketball head coach)
Mar 7, 2026; Duluth, GA, USA; Duke Blue Devils head coach Kara Lawson on the sideline against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the second quarter at Gas South Arena. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-Imagn Images
Like Ralph, it might be a challenge to lure Lawson away from the college game and Duke. But, the way she talked about Stewart recently on Sue Bird's podcast makes her candidacy intriguing. "Public service announcement," she said. "I swear to God, if you ever say a bad word about Stewie around me, I'll fight you."
Lawson coached Stewart this past September as part of Team USA's FIBA World Cup team. The duo won a gold medal together and Stewart won the MVP of the tournament. Like January, Lawson is a former WNBA player who values the defensive side of the ball and knows how to get players to buy into it.
One concern here would be how the offense might look, especially since those Duke teams aren't the most potent on that side of the ball. According to Her Hoop Stats, Duke finished in the 74 percentile last season when it came to points per scoring attempt nationwide.
Honorable mentions: Kenny Brooks (head coach of Kentucky women's basketball), Carly Thibault-DuDonis (head coach of Fairfield women's basketball) and Nicki Collen (head coach of Baylor women's basketball).
Books has been a head coach in the women's basketball space since 2002, but strictly on the college side. He's most known for coaching Mystics point guard Georgia Amoore during her college career.
Thibault-DuDonis comes from a women's basketball and WNBA family. Her father Mike has the second most wins in league history and her brother Eric Thibault is currently Cheryl Reeve's top assistant in Minnesota. Thibault-DuDonis has taken mid-major Fairfield to the NCAA tournament in all four seasons as the program's head coach.
Collen would be making a return to the league where she won Coach of the Year in 2018 coaching the Atlanta Dream. Collen worked with Liberty star Jonquel Jones when she was Curt Miller's assistant and defensive coordinator in 2016 and 2017.
Oct 1, 2026; Las Vegas, Nevada, USA; Indiana Fever head coach Stephanie White reacts during the first quarter of game three of the first round for the 2026 WNBA Playoffs against the Las Vegas Aces at Michelob Ultra Arena. Mandatory Credit: Lucas Peltier-Imagn Images
The question is can the Liberty, a franchise with the second highest valuation in the league, poach another well respected coach across the WNBA?
Let's start with White who is still the Fever's head coach as of now — especially since the front office that hired her has now either stepped down or been fired. (Fever President Kelly Krauskopf stepped down officially Oct. 23 and General Manager Amber Cox was fired on that same day.)
When White was hired by the Fever over two years ago, she still had another year in her contract with the Connecticut Sun. But since the Sun were about to begin their descent and the expectation was that their title window was over after the 2024 season, the Fever were able to pounce and land White.
White's current position has been described as the most difficult in sports because she coached both Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham this season, two players that have derived divisive rhetoric online and in real life for a variety of reasons. Could White want to coach a franchise that has a lot of what the Fever have but without the alleged racist and homophobic bullying that the Fever and Clark's fan base has been said to spew?
And then there's Becky Hammon , a coach that the Liberty reportedly have been trying to hire for a while, dating back to the same coaching cycle when they hired Brondello. It would take serious convincing to bring Hammon back to New York where she played seven years as a player for the Liberty.
While Hammon has won three championships with the Aces and has developed a rapport with franchise star A'ja Wilson , Las Vegas has struggled to assemble a deep roster over the years and they have failed to protect important role players in the past two expansion drafts. That hasn't mattered in some years when Wilson, Jackie Young and Chelsea Gray have played well enough. But, Young will be one of the most sought out unrestricted free agents in 2027, and Gray is currently 34 years-old.
The opportunity in New York could be that the Liberty have their big four in Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu , Jones and Leonie Fiebich all signed on for 2027. She's been open about her respect for those four — she recently said that she "could be effusive" about Stewart. Also, Hammon's longtime partner Brenda Milano has deep ties to the Brooklyn area — she was a head coach for St. Francis College's women's basketball team for around a decade.
In sum, from current WNBA head and assistant coaches to NCAA Women's college basketball coaches, the New York Liberty have a wide variety of options ahead of them as they start their search for their next head coach.
Source: Sports
