Entering the All-Star break at 15-12, the New York Liberty stand out as WNBA underachievers. It’s the same roster that won the WNBA championship just two years ago. What’s up? Head coaching makes the difference, and Chris DeMarco is coming up short.
If this were the Yankees, Mets, Giants, Jets, Knicks, or Rangers, we would be having a dissertation on what has gone wrong from the fans to the media.
Sabrina Ionescu (photo courtesy Yahoo! Sports)
We can blame the reserves. Sabrina Ionescu is an easy target since she hasn’t elevated the Liberty. We can also go after Liberty general manager Jonathan Kolb for doing nothing this offseason to improve the team. But I keep going back to first-year head coach Chris DeMarco. His hire was questionable to begin with because he had never coached women’s basketball previously.
DeMarco is another in a line of guys who’ve made the transition from coaching men to coaching women at any level. Still, he lucked into coaching Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones, and Ionescu, but you wouldn’t know it.
Hired as an offensive innovator, nothing close to that has been seen in how the Liberty play. One reason is that he changes the starting lineup each game, a surefire way to stifle the development of chemistry and flow.
Chris DeMarco (photo courtesy Yahoo! Sports)
What’s this about? My take is that DeMarco doesn’t have a good feel for the game. The Liberty seem so unprepared when the games start. They don’t play defense, and they often fall behind, and the worst thing is the team doesn’t have an identity. Some nights, they want to run. Some nights, they want to outscore. Some nights, they play halfcourt offense.
Jonathan Kolb said he’d leave no stone unturned during the head coaching search. Really? Jose Fernandez would have been the best fit. He’s the favorite to win the WNBA Coach of the Year after leading the Dallas Wings to an 18-9 record heading to the break.
Sure, unless this team has a Mets-like collapse, they are likely to make the WNBA playoffs. But the Liberty is about winning championships. My bet is they won’t as long as DeMarco is on the bench.
