WHO WILL LEAD THE LIBERTY?

Monday marked the first anniversary of the New York Liberty’s first franchise WNBA championship. The City of New York declared October 20 New York Liberty Day.

A year ago, I was walking the streets, soaking in the sights and sounds of a city bursting with pride. The Liberty had made the city the Home of Champions just a year after Gotham FC brought the first title back to the Tri-State since the 2009 New York Yankees.

Three hundred sixty-five days later, the Liberty failed to make it out of the first round of the WNBA Playoffs and parted ways with the winningest coach in franchise history, Sandy Brondello.

It’s been a month since the New York Liberty moved on from Sandy Brondello. The team is searching for a new head coach, and we’ve begun identifying some of the candidates. Ben Pickman of The Athletic reports have reached out to or conducted interviews with the following:

On the latest edition of Gotta Get Up, Erica L. Ayala and I discussed the Liberty coaching search and the bigger picture for the team and WNBA.

As we noted above and have discussed at the WBB Roundup, there’s been a sea change in the WNBA in recent years.

The NBA has become more involved with the W, and the parent league has started to weigh in on WNBA business more deliberately.

On the coaching side, teams have sought out coaches who have various levels of experience in the NBA’s G-League or in international basketball.

As Erica noted, when explicitly asked if the next Liberty coach needed to have WNBA coaching experience, General Manager Jonathan Kolb said that the team “didn’t want to limit their scope” and wanted to have a diverse pool of candidates to speak with.

That line of thinking often has the unintended consequence of leaving experienced WNBA coaches out of new head coaching hires.

As the game continues to grow, we have to be mindful of who gets to be a head coach in the WNBA.

Currently, there are no Black women head coaches in the league following the dismissal of Noelle Quinn in Seattle. Teams and the league at large must make sure they create pipelines so that certain coaches aren’t left out of the WNBA’s new golden age.

For a league that prides itself on diversity and inclusion, it must be present in the leadership ranks as well.

AN INTERNATIONAL INCIDENT?

Dominique Malonga has gotten into a bit of a pickle.

On October 17, Malonga shared a TikTok in which she revealed she suffered a dislocated tendon towards the end of the 2025 WNBA season. It got bad enough that it required surgery, and she is currently in the recovery process.

As Malonga noted, the surgery is why she isn’t in Turkey yet and playing for Euroleague club Fenerbahçe. It turns out she will not be playing there at all, and Fener isn’t taking kindly to that change of heart.

On October 20, Fenerbahçe posted on social media that Malonga “unilaterally terminated her professional player contract with our club without any just cause.”

The team also said that they will “exercise all our legal rights to seek compensation for any material and moral damages incurred by our club during this process.” One avenue they could explore would have the effect of disrupting Malonga’s sophomore season in the WNBA and possibly her position on the French Women’s National Basketball team.

Annie Costabile of Front Office Sports reports that Fenerbahçe could block Malonga from playing in the WNBA in 2026 or whenever the games return following the completion of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. Costiable writes:

“In order for Malonga to return to play in the WNBA in 2026, a letter of clearance from the Turkish federation by way of Fenerbahçe will be required. If there is an outstanding case between Fenerbahçe and Malonga, the letter of clearance could be withheld under the condition that she violated the terms of her contract.”

There are rumors that Dom will likely join Unrivaled this winter, but there have been no confirmations as of this writing.

For Malonga, this is a perilous situation that could have wide-ranging consequences. At just 19 years old, she’s one of the most exciting players in basketball and someone who will have a lot of influence in the United States and Europe going forward. Possibly having her career derailed due to a contract dispute would be disastrous and slow down the growth she’s been experiencing as a player.

With more money coming into women’s basketball, players have more options on where they play and for how much money. At the same time, they have to navigate various bureaucracies and team/league politics around the world. It’s incredibly difficult to manage, and for the W’s youngest player, she’s having an especially tough time with it right now.

Fortunately, there’s a lot of time to prevent things from escalating further. We’ll have plenty more on this developing story on the next episode of Tempestade Talk.

THE TEAM IS STARTING TO TAKE SHAPE

As we wait for CBA negotiations to conclude, there’s still work to be done in the WNBA.. For the Portland Fire, they’ve begun the process of assembling their staff leading into their 2026 return.

It began on October 14 with the hiring of Ashley Battle as Vice President of Basketball Operations. Battle joins General Manager Vanja Černivec as two leaders that will look to make Portland a destination for current and future WNBA players.

“Having been in the players’ shoes,” Battle said in a statement, “I know how powerful it is when an organization invests in every aspect of an athlete’s growth. The Fire is building something special, and I’m proud to now be contributing to that vision.”

The team officially announced Battle’s hire across all platforms. As far as the head coach goes? That didn’t go all that well.

As a matter of fact, it was a bit of a disaster! The team posted on LinkedIn that they hired Cleveland Cavaliers' Director of Player Development, Alex Sarama, as head coach on October 14. The team had to delete the posting as the hiring wasn’t official at that point. Eventually, the team confirmed the hire on October 17, and the news was announced to the world at 3 AM Pacific time.

It was another rocky moment for a new team that has had its fair share of stumbles so far.

Bumpiness aside, it looks like the Fire have found their coach of the future. At just 30 years old, Sarama will be the youngest coach in the W and will get a chance to help mold the inaugural Fire roster into the type of team he wants it to be.

Although he’s very young, he’s spent the past decade coaching around the world and has drawn raves for implementing the Constraints Led Approach method. In a conversation with Bill Oram of The Oregonian, Sarama spoke

“For me to be an effective basketball coach, that requires a knowledge of offensive and defensive schemes, player development, the weight room, analytics. This, to me, is the future of the modern-day coach.”

Sarama is one of the latest in a string of new WNBA hires who have coaching experience in the NBA. The two leagues have grown closer, with a greater level of partnership and coordination in recent years.

As we discussed earlier, it’ll be fascinating to see which coaches enter this space and are given real opportunities to succeed.

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