Liberty move on from Chris DeMarco after one season, ESPN reports

The New York Liberty will not retain Chris DeMarco after one season as head coach, ESPN’s Alexa Philippou reported Tuesday, citing sources. The Athletic separately reported the firing through Annie Costabile. The Liberty had not posted a corresponding announcement on their news page when this report was prepared.

The change would give New York a third head coach in three years, according to Philippou. DeMarco’s team finished the regular season 26-18 and entered the playoffs as the eighth seed. It swept Minnesota in the first round before Atlanta swept New York in the semifinals.

That leaves a difficult assessment for a franchise whose first championship came in 2024: how much weight to give a substantial postseason upset when the broader season did not produce a consistent championship challenge.

A season with a real countercase

There were meaningful achievements under DeMarco. The Liberty won the 2026 Commissioner’s Cup, and their first-round series against Minnesota ended with an 87-71 New York victory. Those results belong in any fair account of a tenure that lasted only one season.

Atlanta then exposed the gap that remained. The Dream won the semifinal opener 92-82 and took Game 2, 101-98, in overtime. New York could compete with the eventual finalist, but it could not win a game in the series. A close loss and a decisive loss both count once in a best-of-five series; they can still ask different questions of a coach and roster.

DeMarco arrived with four NBA championships on his coaching résumé, as the Liberty noted when announcing his staff in April. That experience made the appointment understandable. One WNBA season supplies a much smaller body of evidence, and the team’s public record has not yet supplied an explanation for the reported decision.

What the next appointment must answer

The next appointment needs a basketball explanation beyond a familiar name or championship résumé. New York must identify which parts of the Minnesota series it can reproduce across a full season, and how its offense will create dependable possessions when a playoff opponent takes away the first option. The overtime defeat to Atlanta makes late-game organization a reasonable area to examine, without reducing the entire season to one finish.

Another coaching change also means another period of adjustment. The case for making it rests on whether the next staff can deliver enough improvement to justify that disruption. The Cup title and Minnesota sweep set a concrete standard for the successor: preserve what worked while making the Liberty’s best basketball less intermittent.