Chris DeMarco Fired As Liberty HC After 2026 WNBA Playoff Exit vs. Dream

The New York Liberty fired coach Chris DeMarco after one season, the team announced Tuesday.

ESPN's Alexa Philippou first reported DeMarco's exit.

New York went 26-18 in the regular season to finish eighth in the standings. The Liberty beat the Minnesota Lynx in the opening round of the playoffs before getting swept by the Atlanta Dream in the semifinals.

DeMarco was dealt a tough hand with three-time All-Star Satou Sabally only making 13 appearances. She suffered a concussion in June and never returned to the lineup.

Sabrina Ionescu's continued decline as a shooter presents a problem that coaching alone may not solve. She knocked down fewer than 30 percent of her three-pointers for the second straight year.

But questions over DeMarco's future emerged from the moment New York's season ended. Some of the team's biggest stars didn't go out of their way to endorse his return to the sideline in 2027, either.

Breanna Stewart averaged 33 minutes a night, her highest since 2023, and that reflected how much the Liberty were relying on the two-time MVP in the absence of a better strategy.

By the end, New York's bench was almost nonexistent. Marine Johannes played four minutes in the Game 3 loss to the Dream, while Rebecca Allen got the dreaded DNP-coach's decision.

There was also the confusion over whether the Liberty had a reset timeout in the waning moments of their overtime defeat to Atlanta in Game 2. That didn't reflect well on anyone involved.

Firing DeMarco illustrates the urgency New York is feeling with Stewart and Jonquel Jones both into their 30s.

The quartet of Stewart, Jones, Ionescu and Sabally combine to earn $4.6 million in 2027, which accounts for more than half of the $8.3 million salary cap. In a league with a hard cap, tying that much up in four players makes it difficult to adequately fill out the supporting cast.

Maybe the formula for contending next year is as simple as hiring the right coach and getting better luck in terms of injuries. But the pressure is squarely on general manager Jonathan Kolb to identify the best candidate.