WNBA Coaching Carousel: Three Teams to See New Coaches for the 2026 Season
After the 2025 season, the Dallas Wings, New York Liberty, and Seattle Storm have decided to change their head coaches. With the arrival of the expansion teams Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire to the WNBA next year, five vacancies open up for the 2026 season. The last vacancy was filled on Friday, when the Liberty named Chris DeMarco, assistant to the Golden State Warriors, as their new head coach. DeMarco is the third coach with NBA ties to be hired as a WNBA head coach this offseason.New York Liberty
Previous Coach: Sandy Brondello (September 23)
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Current Coach: Chris DeMarco (November 21)
Who is DeMarco? DeMarco has spent the last 13 years with the Warriors, where he was part of four NBA championships. Initially a member of Mark Jackson’s staff, hired in 2012 as a video coordinator, DeMarco was the only coach Steve Kerr kept when he took over Golden State in 2015. During the last seasons, DeMarco has been mainly in charge of the Warriors’ defense, while working individually with players like Klay Thompson and Jordan Poole. He is also the head coach of the Bahamas men’s national team. Liberty forward Jonquel Jones is a member of the Bahamas women’s national team. How DeMarco fits with the Liberty DeMarco can utilize his experience with Golden State’s long-tenured stars in New York. Sabrina Ionescu, who competed in a three-point contest with Stephen Curry, brings great range and the ability to run the pick-and-roll or be dangerous without the ball. Ionescu will look to bounce back after shooting 30% from beyond the arc last season, her worst mark.Meanwhile, Breanna Stewart’s versatile playmaking and defense bring parallels to former Defensive Player of the Year Draymond Green. But the Warriors have never had a post threat like Jones, giving DeMarco a more threatening option if he imports the split cuts that have been a hallmark of Kerr’s offense.
The Liberty announced that they would not renew Brondello’s contract. She leaves after four seasons, one year after leading New York to the 2024 WNBA title. The Liberty had a 27-17 record this season and were the fifth seed in the playoffs. Sandy ends her time in New York as the coach with the most victories in the history of the franchise, and she took us to heights never before seen as the first coach to lead the Liberty to a championship. We wish Sandy the best in her next chapter. Brondello, 57 years old, was hired to coach the Liberty in December 2021 and had a 107-53 record in four seasons. Before New York, Brondello coached the Phoenix Mercury from 2014 to 2021, winning their first WNBA championship in 2014. She had a 150-108 record in eight seasons with Phoenix, reaching the playoffs every year. Brondello has also coached the Australian Olympic team and played in the WNBA from 1998 to 2003.
Toronto Tempo
Current Coach: Sandy Brondello (October 22)
Presented on November 4 as Toronto’s coach, Brondello outlined a clear vision for the Tempo: “To build a world-class franchise that competes at the highest level, create a strong and dynamic culture, and base everything we do on clear and consistent values.” Brondello said the vision is deeply aligned with what Tempo general manager Monica Wright Rogers and the organization envision. On several occasions, Brondello said there was a “partnership” between her and the franchise, a word she had previously used to describe what was missing from the New York Liberty, who let her go shortly after the season. Wright Rogers said he was looking for two attributes in Toronto’s first head coach in franchise history: someone who would attract free agents and someone with coaching experience in the WNBA.Brondello had some other coaching offers, but reiterated that the partnership that Toronto offered, as well as the opportunity to build something from scratch, made Tempo the right choice. Brondello said that the team’s identity and culture will develop once Toronto builds its roster, which it will do through the expansion draft, free agency, and the college draft. The coach, who won WNBA titles with Phoenix and New York, anticipates a fun and entertaining style of play.Something happened in New York and we were able to have the opportunity to get one of the best coaches in WNBA history. … It would be unwise not to try to sign her.
Monica Wright Rogers, general manager of the Tempo
With two championships and a regular season record of 452-271, Brondello gives instant competitive credibility to the expansion Tempo, which begins playing in 2026. She has been a WNBA head coach for 13 seasons and an assistant for eight. Brondello’s extensive knowledge of the WNBA and international play will aid the Tempo’s roster-building decisions. And Brondello’s friendly and humble personality also makes her a strong public-facing asset for the Tempo, as the franchise seeks to establish itself not just as Toronto’s team, but as Canada’s team. The Tempo will host games at the Coca Cola Coliseum in Toronto, while playing two regular season games in Montreal and two in Vancouver.The goal is to bring a championship to Toronto. My narrative hasn’t changed. I like to win, it’s fun. But I also know it’s difficult. We are going to work from scratch, building the right culture, adding the right players and making sure we keep working together to be able to put the best product on the court.
Sandy Brondello
Seattle Storm
Previous coach: Noelle Quinn (September 21)
Current Coach: Sonia Raman (October 24)
The Storm moved quickly to hire a head coach, and they chose New York Liberty assistant Sonia Raman for the position. She replaces Noelle Quinn, who was fired after Seattle’s elimination in the first round of the WNBA playoffs. About Raman: Having won the Coach of the Year award for leading the Golden State Valkyries, the expansion team, to the playoffs in their debut season, Natalie Nakase was possibly the strongest hire of the last WNBA coaching cycle. Raman’s background is similar to Nakase’s, with a four-year stint as an NBA assistant coach for the Memphis Grizzlies, followed by a season on Sandy Brondello’s staff. Between her time in Memphis and her joining the Liberty, Raman was a frequent visitor at Storm practices during the 2024 training camp. Now, she is tasked with getting more out of a Seattle group that collapsed in the second half of last season despite adding a fourth All-Star, the most in the league, with a limit trade for guard Brittney Sykes. Raman’s task will be twofold: to improve the team’s offense to compete in the short term and, at the same time, to develop a future core led by the number 2 draft pick, Dominique Malonga, a member of the All-Rookie team and the youngest player in the league at 19 years old. The Storm will also add a 2026 lottery pick via the Los Angeles Sparks. Like Nakase, Raman is a pioneer in the band. She will follow Nakase as the second Asian-American head coach in the WNBA and will be the first of Indian descent. Why Quinn was fired: Quinn, 40, joined the Storm’s coaching staff as an assistant in 2019, then succeeded Dan Hughes after he resigned six games into the 2021 season due to health issues. She finished with a 97-89 regular season record and a 4-8 playoff mark. Quinn also played in the WNBA from 2007 to 2018, including two stints with the Storm. Only Cheryl Reeve, of the Minnesota Lynx, had a longer tenure in a WNBA head coaching position than Quinn. Although Quinn led the Storm to the inaugural Commissioner’s Cup title and four playoff appearances in five seasons, Seattle did not meet expectations after adding Skylar Diggins and Nneka Ogwumike before the 2024 campaign. According to league sources, Jewell Loyd asked the Storm to fire Quinn after the team’s sweep in the first round of 2024 against Las Vegas. Diggins and Ogwumike supported Quinn keeping his job. After an investigation in response to Loyd’s accusations of harassment and bullying found no violations by the coaching staff, Loyd was traded to the Las Vegas Aces, who eliminated Seattle in a close three-game series in the first round of this year’s playoffs. Assuming that the core of Diggins, Ogwumike, and Gabby Williams returns in free agency, the biggest challenge for Quinn’s replacement will be to improve the team’s mid-range offense. The Storm ranked tenth in points per possession outside of transition, according to GeniusIQ tracking. In addition to a solid organization and facilities, Seattle was able to sell candidates on the promise of coaching the No. 2 draft pick, Malonga, who was fourth in ESPN’s ranking of talents under 25 as a 19-year-old rookie.
Dallas Wings
Previous Coach: Chris Koclanes (September 30)
Current Coach: Jose Fernandez (October 23)
About Fernandez: The Wings are about to bring in their sixth coach since 2018 (not including a short-term interim). This time, the Wings are going with a long-time college coach: Jose Fernandez from South Florida. He takes over a team that boasts the 2025 WNBA Rookie of the Year, Paige Bueckers, and a lottery pick in 2026, but has had a 19-65 record in the last two seasons. Fernandez spent 25 seasons at USF, with a record of 485-317. He has no WNBA experience, as was the case with two hires from the college game last season in Karl Smesko of the Atlanta Dream and Lynne Roberts of the Los Angeles Sparks. If you’re looking for a consistent philosophical thread connecting the Wings’ coaching hires over the last seven years, you won’t find it. Longtime professional and college coach Fred Williams made the move with the Tulsa franchise to Dallas in 2016 and then resigned at the end of the 2018 season. Since then, the Wings have had a two-time WNBA champion coach (Brian Agler), a former WNBA player (Vickie Johnson), someone who had coached at the high school, college, and professional levels (Latricia Trammell), and Koclanes, who had been an assistant at the college and professional levels. None stayed in the job longer than two years, so that will be part of the challenge for Fernandez. The Wings hope he can succeed with the Wings as Smesko did with the Dream, leading them to a 30-14 record last season. Like Fernandez, Smesko also had a lot of success at the Florida middle school level. Why Koclanes was let go: Koclanes was fired after a single season with Dallas, which had a 10-34 record, tied for the worst in the league. He was hired to succeed Trammell last December after the Wings went 9-31 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2020.Previously, she spent two seasons as an assistant to Lindsay Gottlieb for the USC women’s basketball team and eight seasons in the WNBA working with current Wings general manager Curt Miller, who previously coached the Los Angeles Sparks and Connecticut Sun.
It’s difficult to judge any coach in a season. Considering Dallas’s difficulties in 2024, it’s not like everyone expected the Wings to make a huge leap in 2025. Injuries to players like Arike Ogunbowale and Maddy Siegrist hurt, and the offseason moves to bring NaLyssa Smith and DiJonai Carrington to Dallas didn’t work out, as both were traded during the season. Koclanes could have grown on the job if he had been given more time, but that hasn’t been the way the Wings operate. The Wings began in Detroit in 1998 and won three WNBA championships in 12 years in that city. Since moving to Tulsa in 2010 and then to Dallas in 2016, they have only had winning records twice in 16 years, reaching the playoffs six times.Portland Fire
Current Coach: Alex Sarama (October 17)
Sarama is an assistant for the Cleveland Cavaliers, whose previous coaching experience includes the London Lions, Paris Basketball, and RipCity Remix. Sarama is one of the leading authorities on CLA (Constraints-Led Approach), a training system that has become popular in European basketball, soccer, and increasingly in the NBA, specifically with Victor Wembanyama of the San Antonio Spurs. CLA is a training methodology that emphasizes adaptability, improvisation, and decision-making instead of predetermined movement patterns and exercises. For example, Sarama will rarely perform the same exercise twice, but will use small-sided games with different constraints, such as rule adjustments, scoring changes, or time limits, to force players to make decisions under pressure. Sarama told ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne that having the opportunity to implement CLA with an expansion team is an ideal scenario, because he and general manager Vanja Černivec can hire people to fit within the new system.
