Rumors

Anthony Slater: Chris DeMarco will be on the Warriors’ bench tonight and in near future, but will depart for the NY Liberty head job during this season. Timing TBD. Sabrina Ionescu reached out to Steph Curry during the hiring process to ask about DeMarco. Report for NBA Today

x.com

The next head coach of the WNBA's New York Liberty, according to league sources, will be one of these three finalists: Phoenix Mercury assistant coach Kristi Tolliver, former Nets assistant Will Weaver and Raptors assistant Jama Mahlalela.

marcstein.substack.com

So who are the top candidates for the Liberty? There does not appear to be much current momentum for Liberty assistant coach Sonia Raman, who previously spent four years as a Memphis Grizzlies assistant before moving into The W. New York very much seems to be looking for a new voice rather than hiring someone from Brondello's staff, with sources saying that former Liberty guard and current Los Angeles Lakers assistant coach Lindsey Harding has interviewed with New York. Before joining JJ Redick's staff in Los Angeles, Harding notably won G League Coach of the Year honors while in charge of the Stockton Kings. Current Mercury assistant Kristi Tolliver is another known candidate to have interviewed strongly with the Liberty, sources said. Tolliver, who began her NBA coaching career with the Wizards and Mavericks while still playing in the WNBA, now has more than five years of bench experience.

marcstein.substack.com

Kendra Andrews: NEWS: the New York Liberty announce that coach Sandy Brondello’s contract will not be renewed for the 2026 season.

x.com

Police arrested a man Wednesday for allegedly throwing a dildo at a New York Liberty game on Aug. 5 against the Wings. Charles Burgess, 32, faces two counts of assault for throwing the dildo at the arena. His throw didn’t make it onto the court, but instead struck a 12-year-old girl in the leg.

Front Office Sports

No Liberty player has had a closer seat to the dramatic transformation of the organization than Sabrina Ionescu. Last September, in Game 2 of the Liberty’s first-round playoff series against the Atlanta Dream in Brooklyn, Ionescu was walking to the sideline to inbound the ball. She felt a hand reach out to her for a high five. It was Spike Lee. “I felt like New York was injected into my veins,” Ionescu said in a press conference following the game. The Academy Award–winning filmmaker returned for Game 5 of the Finals and has been to multiple games this season.

Front Office Sports

New York Liberty star Sabrina Ionescu won her second 3-point contest Friday night to kick off WNBA All-Star Weekend, becoming the second player to win multiple shootouts. Ionescu won by scoring 30 of the possible 40 points in the second round, beating reigning champion Allisha Gray, who had 22. Ionescu's 30 points tied Allie Quigley for the second most in a WNBA 3-point contest. Ionescu holds the record of 37, set in 2023. "I knew I wasn't going to get it when I missed a few on the front end," Ionescu said of the record. "But I mean, I could have gotten close. I just missed some easy ones at the end. I think I knew I was high up there, and I kind of locked out a little bit and started like listening to the crowd. But I mean, 30 is not too bad. So I'm happy with 30 as well."

ESPN

ESPN’s broadcast of Tuesday night’s WNBA matchup between the Las Vegas Aces and New York Liberty drew a big viewing audience. Madeline Kenney of the New York Post shared the numbers on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday. “The numbers from last night’s nationally televised Aces-Liberty game are in: The Liberty win averaged 701K viewers, peaking at 813K on ESPN,” Kenney said. “It was the most-watched non-Indiana WNBA game on ESPN (E1) since 1999.”

Awful Announcing

Caitlin Clark Effect Back in Full As Fever-Liberty Draws 2.2 Million Viewers Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images When Caitlin Clark is on national TV, the ratings go boom. Saturday’s game between the Fever and Liberty averaged 2.2 million viewers on ABC. ESPN announced that viewership peaked at 2.8 million and was the third-most-watched WNBA game ever on ABC. The matchup drew 76% more viewers than the average regular-season WNBA game on ABC last year. Clark had missed five games with a quad injury, during which time WNBA ratings sagged—although Indiana games even without Clark still did pretty well, all things considered, as Front Office Sports’s Colin Salao documented.

Front Office Sports

Burke is in the Basketball Hall of Fame, rightfully so. She was handed nothing, coming from obscurity, first working New York Liberty games on MSG Network before her rise through the ESPN ranks. She was sharp and informative. But in the three-person booth the last two years, she hasn’t seemed to mesh as well with Breen. He doesn’t outright ignore what she says, but they rarely build on each other’s comments. ESPN has failed to create a deep game analyst bench, even resorting to college basketball expert Bilas on playoff games this season. Some top decision-makers like Legler a lot, and he could become a Finals option, according to sources briefed on the network decision-makers’ thinking.

New York Times

Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark will be out at least two weeks with a left quad strain, the team announced Monday. Further updates will be provided following reevaluation, the team said. Fever coach Stephanie White said that she wasn't sure when the injury happened but that Clark reported some pain in her leg after the team's loss to the New York Liberty on Saturday. Clark subsequently underwent an MRI and was diagnosed with the strain, although White said she did not know its grade.

ESPN

The New York Liberty have raised capital from a group of investors at a record valuation for a professional women’s sports franchise of $450 million, sources with knowledge of the agreement told The Athletic. The total size of the shares sold in the team’s capital raise is a percentage in the “mid-teens,” according to one of the sources. It is unclear how many investors are part of the capital raise, and the deal is still subject to league approval.

New York Times

The earlier game Saturday between the defending champion Las Vegas Aces and New York Liberty averaged 1.3 million viewers on ABC, so add another one million-plus game to the WNBA ledger.

New York Times

New York Liberty star Sabrina Ionescu is becoming an investor for the NWSL club Bay FC, the club announced Monday.New York Liberty star Sabrina Ionescu is becoming an investor for the NWSL club Bay FC, the club announced Monday. The 2024 WNBA champion is also joining the club as an "official commercial advisor," a position that will help the organization with commercial and marketing strategies. "I whole-heartedly understand how important investment really is and obviously you can talk about it and be about it, but you really have to want to be committed to it and invest to be able to see what you believe in come to light," Ionescu told ESPN.

ESPN