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On October 24, 2024, the New York Liberty strolled down Manhattan’s Canyon of Heroes. They were fresh off their first WNBA title, ending the city’s 51-year professional basketball title drought.
Sabrina Ionescu was wearing a YERRRnescu shirt. Jonquel Jones was draped in a Bahamian flag, holding her WNBA Finals MVP trophy.
The vision came to life for the Liberty.
But just as quickly as the tide rose, it fell. Less than a year later, New York found themselves ousted in the first round of the WNBA playoffs, and they relieved Sandy Brondello of her duties as head coach.
What went wrong for New York in 2025?
Well, how much time do you have?
Championship Hangover
The first thing that you look at when a team wins a championship—or in this case, its first championship—is how they will respond the next season. The Liberty heard the talk. They heard how people felt about the controversial call that resulted in them winning the title against Minnesota.
They knew they had to put their foot on the gas.
And they did.
They came out of the gate on fire. So much so, that there was a date circled on every WNBA fan’s calendar: July 30.
That was the date that the Liberty and the Lynx would play each other for the first time. Not only would it be a rematch of the 2024 WNBA Finals, but it would have the two top teams in the league at the time facing off against each other.
Because while the year didn’t end on a high note, New York looked every part of a team that wanted to repeat as champs early on.
Jones followed up her Finals MVP run, looking dominant early on. Ionescu was locked in as a scorer and a playmaker for the Liberty.
Newcomer Natasha Cloud looked to be exactly what the team needed as a lockdown perimeter defender, being that they lost Kayla Thornton to Golden State in the expansion draft and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton missed the season due to a knee injury.
Nine wins in a row to open the season. Ten wins in their first 11 games. The world was coming up New York.
Until it wasn’t.
The Downturn
While it wasn’t until July that Breanna Stewart was forced to miss time due to a deep bone bruise, Stewie never quite looked healthy in 2025. She underwent arthroscopic surgery on her meniscus in March.
“Rushing back to play, I didn’t give myself the proper time to kind of really heal,” Stewart said during a recent Unrivaled media day session.
Stewart was still getting hers—leading the team in points, steals, and blocks per game. And with the system that Brondello had in place—a five-out NBA-type system—it was crucial that Stewart could operate at a high level. The system is designed for floor spacing, allowing Stewart to be the piece that holds the offense together.
The numbers reflect how much better they were with Stewart on the floor, but it was obvious that she wasn’t at 100 percent.
Stewart wasn’t the only one who dealt with missed time last year, either. Jones, too, was held to 31 games—the same number that Stewart played. Ionescu played 38 games, and Leonie Fiebich played 37.
But a bigger issue was Nyara Sabally, who had a breakout performance during the 2024 playoffs, was held to only 17 games while dealing with a knee injury.
When it rains, it pours.
The most notable slip-up on the offensive side from Stewart was the continued decrease in her three-point shot. Her percentage from beyond the arc has decreased every season since 2022, with her 24.1 percent mark in 2025 reaching a career low.
The hope for Stewart—and the Liberty—is that the rest will allow her to gain the proper lift in her legs to get back to her former self behind the arc.
“Honestly, I’m really happy with where I’m at,” Stewart said during the Unrivaled media availability. “I think as far as the way that my season ended, obviously not happy with the Liberty and what happened but it gave me time. It gave me time, it gave me time to be off from the court and really work on my body.”
The Bright Spots
It wasn’t all doom and gloom for them. Kennedy Burke enjoyed a breakout season in her sixth year in the league, averaging a career high in minutes, points, and field goal percentage.
Burke worked as a key player off the bench for the Liberty, but also as a fill-in starter due to the number of injuries that the team had. Think of it in the same ilk as the role that Thornton played in 2024, filling in as a starter when Laney-Hamilton missed time.
But she didn’t need to start for long, because New York won the Emma Meesseman sweepstakes, landing the services of the Aussie for 17 games to end the season. Meesseman, who last played in the WNBA in 2022 with the Chicago Sky, made an instant impact, playing 25.9 minutes per game and averaging 13.4 points per game.
Let the Record Show
Despite starting the season 10-1, the Liberty went on a losing skid shortly after by losing five of their next seven games in addition to a four-game losing streak to end July.
New York ended the season going 10-7 over the final six weeks, before falling to the Mercury in three games in the first round of the playoffs.
No repeat. No trip to the finals. No expected Minnesota and New York rematch.
Just question marks and changes.
Brondello was fired and joined the Toronto Tempo expansion team as the team’s inaugural head coach.
The Liberty went in a different direction, hiring Golden State Warriors assistant coach Chris DeMarco.
“On Sandy, I really loved and appreciated playing with her,” Stewart said. “Having Chris come from the Warriors, I’m excited to see. The NBA just does different things.”
And those different things are exactly what General Manager Jonathan Kolb needed in his new coach, listing out a number of non-negotiables, including focusing on player development, tactical competence, basketball curiosity, and building a dynasty.
“We came up with criteria that we felt were non-negotiables for our future,” Kolb said at DeMarco’s introductory press conference. “Chris possesses a rare combination of tactical, savvy, emotional intelligence as well, as well as an unrelenting work ethic that aligns well with our players, as well as just like who we are as a franchise. So we believe that Chris is the right person at this time to unlock the full potential of our group and to lead the New York Liberty to the levels that we all expect.”
The change was a surprise, given that the Liberty just won the title, but it’s the way of the WNBA as it continues to evolve. You have to win, and you have to win now.
DeMarco enters New York at a pivotal time, as the CBA negotiations are still taking place at the time of this writing. The only players that are under contract are Leonie Fiebich and Nyara Sabally, with the understanding that there are five players with an exclusive rights tag and the core available, as well.
The goal for DeMarco is to win. It’s to win right away. After 2024’s title and the subsequent dismissal of Brondello after 2025, you could say it’s another one of the team’s non-negotiables.
