Liberty Assistant Coach Not Returning
Sandy Brondello isn't the only New York Liberty coach to see the curtain fall on their metropolitan minute.
With Brondello's contract not renewed in the top spot for the 2026 season, general manager Jonathan Kolb announced that assistant Olaf Lange will likewise depart. Lange came to the Liberty with Brondello in 2022, nearly two decades after the two wed during a shared stint in his native Germany.
"I can share that we are also going to be parting ways with Olaf Lange," Kolb said. "I think everybody in this room probably understands the dynamics there, but in terms of the other coaches, we haven't made decisions yet."
Lange and Brondello have been married since 2005 and have two children, Jayda and Brody. The two previously collaborated during Brondello's first head coaching stop with the San Antonio Silver Stars and previously did battle during the 2021 WNBA Finals: Lange's Chicago Sky downed a Phoenix Mercury group led by Brondello in a series that featured future Liberty champion Courtney Vandersloot.
In addition to his time at the helm of the Liberty, Lange previously served as the head coach of Germany and Russia's respective women's national teams, as well as an associate head coach at, ironically enough, Liberty University.
In New York, Lange and Brondello reached two more editions of the Finals together, winning the latter last fall to give the Liberty its first postseason championship. Lange took over Liberty practices late last summer while Brondello was overseeing the Australian women's national basketball team's run to the Paris podium during the 2024 Olympics.
"It's great (that) we're in this journey together," Brondello said prior to the 2023 Finals, remarking that Lange was "humble" in his victory two years prior. "He's been coaching, been a head coach for a much longer time, I played for a long time. He coached me and I've learned so much from him. So it's great that we're on this journey together with our children."
Brondello's primary staff also included incumbent Zach O'Brien and newcomer Sonia Raman, a former Memphis Grizzlies assistant. Raman was in her first year with New York and replaced the Connecticut-bound Roneeka Hodges, who serves as the associate head coach under Rachid Meziane. Other notable assistants include video coordinator Brian Lankton and director of player development Andrew Wade.
Geoff Magliocchetti is a veteran sportswriter who contributes to a variety of sites on the "On SI" network. In addition to the Yankees/Mets, Geoff also covers the New York Knicks, New York Liberty, and New York Giants and has previously written about the New York Jets, Buffalo Bills, Staten Island Yankees, and NASCAR.