Firing a coach who has won you a championship in any sport is almost unheard of. Yet two WNBA coaches have been fired before a champion has been named. Both of those coaches have brought their city a championship: Sandy Brondello, who led the New York Liberty to last year’s championship and Noel Quinn, who helped the Seattle Storm win the championship in 2020.
As a Storm fan, when I found out that the Storm wasn’t renewing Quinn’s contract, I crashed out. The fact that the organization decided to fire her after losing in the playoffs, but by only one point in game three.
Their roster could have accomplished more, but they almost defeated a WNBA finals-bound team that ended their regular season with a 16-game win streak. The Las Vegas Aces also had the MVP, Aj’a Wilson, on their roster.
Quinn still took the Storm to the playoffs after losing one of last year’s stars. She also did a great job starting to develop the 19-year-old rookie from France.
Quinn is known as a players’ coach who focuses on building a good culture, and almost all of her former players praise her. She was the only black female coach in the WNBA, in a league made up of 70-83% black women.
A coach who deserved to be fired was the Dallas Wings coach, Chris Koclanes. The Wings only had 10 wins under his leadership and traded away multiple stars.
The number of clips that had confused Dallas players staring at a play he drew up was one too many. Paige Bueckers, the Wings star and WNBA Rookie of the Year, had 44 points in one game and Dallas still managed to lose.
The coach without a doubt that should not have been fired was Brondello. Last season she led the Liberty to a 32 and eight record. This gave them the number one seed, which helped propel them to the franchise’s first championship.
This season wasn’t all that disappointing, throughout an injury-plagued season, with stars Sabrina Ionesco, Breana Stewart and Jonquel Jones, they still managed to clinch the five seed. They did lose in the first round, but it was in three games and the team they lost to, the Phoenix Mercury, made it to the finals.
The WNBA is set to be full of many coaching changes this offseason. There are many head coaching positions available besides the Storm, Liberty and Wings. The 2026 WNBA season will include the addition of the Portland Fire and the Toronto Tempo, who have not yet hired head coaches.
