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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:

• Kristi Toliver

• Will Weaver

• Joseph Blair

• Sonia Raman

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.