Katie Smith is still head coach of the New York Liberty?
In all seriousness, though, the team that really needs a change right now is Phoenix. They've simply maxed out at the semi-final level with Sandy Brondello, and they have too much talent not to be winning championships.
The issues are the same year after year, and there's no real progress being made. Take team depth, as just one example, a longstanding problem that Brondello even alluded to during last night's post-game presser. Yet this is the coach who had up-and-coming phenom Courtney Williams as a rookie, glued her behind to the bench for half a season, and then traded her away to Connecticut for exactly nothing. I could go on and on about the multitude of problem areas, and have done so on many occasions here on this board.
I don't expect Brondello to be let go, she's too popular with DT and the rest of the players. Of course therein lies much of the problem, because she's not really in a position to demand accountability.
I see her situation as having many parallels to John Farrell, manager of the Boston Red Sox up until the end of last season. Both had a championship early in their tenure, and a reasonable degree of success thereafter. But both also had clearly identifiable limitations, blind spots even, that caused their respective teams top out and get stuck.
Change in situations like these is never easy. It's far from a no-brainer like with Amber Stocks. It takes a lot of courage to pull the trigger. But as we see with the Red Sox, and the Seattle Storm for that matter, the rewards can be immediate and very much worth it. It would be good for Mercury ownership to try to get some buy in from their big-three and make something happen here.
