Chicago Sky fire Amber Stocks
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MilfordHusky
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I'm not surprised. I thought she was over-matched. Let's see who replaces her. They have some nice pieces.
MSGRET
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What, you can't say fired now days!!! This world is becoming too PC. When you are told to leave because you didn't perform to expectations then you are FIRED.
triaddukefan
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It took Seattle almost 2 years to make a change.Lets hope so
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Dont follow, but 1 year seems kinda quick to give her the hook. And this included the tumult of Westchester.
Plus firing a coach implies one actually cares enough to intervene.
nwhoopfan
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Lib went from 22-12 the year before to 7-27 this season, with much of the same roster. How is that not a glaring indictment against the coach?
Vickie Johnson got canned after only 1 season of coaching San Antonio, so there is precedent.
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The change of venue could have been a factor. Probably took the wind out of the sails of some players. They also had extensive injury problems at both the beginning and end of the season. They might have tanking at the end of the season because they qualified for injury exemptions for the players that were out, but the Liberty never bothered with it.
Well the franchise moved to a different city, and the owner wanted a new coach... had Laimbeer in mind the whole time.
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Good reason to keep a coach
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DaddyChoc
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Carnac
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I would be shocked if Smith returns next season. She and her staff did not give ownership or their fanbase one reason to be optimistic for next season.
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The ownership didn’t give the fans much reason to be optimistic. Very indifferent ownership, unlike the situation in Minnesota.
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1. Sorry to hear this
2. A nice draft or two and they are in the mix.
3. Chicago was talented in the backcourt, weak in the front; Too weak to contend night in and night out.
4. I do not believe that Ms Stocks was overmatched, her offensive options were limited. Still, the game I saw against Washington, her team competed and they competed hard for 39+ minutes.
2. A nice draft or two and they are in the mix.
3. Chicago was talented in the backcourt, weak in the front; Too weak to contend night in and night out.
4. I do not believe that Ms Stocks was overmatched, her offensive options were limited. Still, the game I saw against Washington, her team competed and they competed hard for 39+ minutes.
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If I remember correctly, you are a season ticket holder or at least a fan of the team. How do you feel about it? I actually liked her. She was given a tough situation with Delle Donne wanting to leave. I'm sure that wasn't Stocks' choice. Then she had a very young team who was learning and growing as the year went on it seemed to me. She is one of the classiest coaches I've seen as far as her demeanor goes. So who could they get to replace her is the next question?
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Orangutan
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Yes, I'm a season ticket holder. The owner said he expected Chicago to be bad last year but he thought they could make the playoff this year. That seems a bit optimistic to me. I thought Chicago did about as well as could be expected all things considered.
I think Stocks the GM hurt Stocks the Head Coach. Most people see more in Alaina Coates than I do, but I think she's pretty bad. Jankoska was an embarrassing whiff of a 1st round pick. DeShields was the right pick but picking DeShields and Gabby is puzzling. I just don't see Gabby as a 4. As skilled and athletic as she is, she's simply giving up too much size to people like A'ja Wilson and Tina Charles. So you basically took two players for the same position and have a gaping hole at 4.
As a coach, I often found her lineups/substitutions perplexing but overall she seemed ok. The players seemed to play hard for her. I have the same question you do: who can they get to replace her? They fired Pokey Chatman and hired Stocks. In retrospect, that was a lateral move at best and she only lasted two years. So now what? Given that Stocks wasn't egregiously bad and it doesn't seem there is an obvious upgrade available, I'd probably have given her another year and hope she grew into the job over time. But at the same time, I won't lament her being gone.
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People seem to forget that Stocks traded Imani McGee-Stafford (who apparently asked to be traded) and Tamara Young (whose contract was expiring anyway) to the Atlanta Dream for their first round pick in 2018. She picked the right team to trade with because that first round pick turned out to be a lottery pick, which she subsequently used to acquire Diamond DeShields. Turned out to be a pretty good transaction for Chicago.
Orangutan
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You're right, I did forget that. Good point.
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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.
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nwhoopfan
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Interesting take. I've seen quite a few criticisms of the Mercury's defensive intensity.
On the subject of developing young players to bolster the bench, Gulich barely got any PT this year, less and less as the year went on. Almost none in the playoffs. Obviously Griner is a star and Gulich isn't going to take her place, but 6-8 minutes a game maybe for some rest?
Just looked it up, zero minutes in 7 playoff games and averaged 5.0 minutes per game in 23 regular season contests (so 11 DNP). A player isn't going to develop at all playing that sparingly.
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Good luck with that. Brondello is Taurasi's and Griner's assistant coach in Russia (and wife of the head coach) during their real basketball season. Trying to break them up during the WNBA season might end up with more "breaking up" than the ownership bargained for.
CL82
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I think it was game 3, they had a camera in the huddle. Brondello is going over the play, badly, and Taurasi is quick nodding her and you see the look on her face was, yeah I'm just doing whatever I want.
She did and scored.
SVCBeercats
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Reminds me of a K. C. Jones story about Larry Bird. Celtics called timeout with like 2 secs. on the clock. Need a basket to win. K. C. started to diagram a play when Bird said: "Coach why don't you just get the ball to me and tell everyone else to get out of way." K. C. did, they did, and Bird did. Swish, win!
SVCBeercats
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"Numerous coaches in the league are making in the range of $250,000 -- some as much as $300,000." according to some article. How many WCB coaches want to take a pay cut to coach in the WNBA? What is the up side to coaching in the WNBA? Get fired in 2-3 years.
MilfordHusky
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Some of the coaches are good, but the pay is well below that of the top WCBB coaches. And the refs may get paid less too, because they are worse.
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.
I think the criticism of Brondello is a little harsh here. She took this injury depleted team to the brink on the WNBA finals....where I think they would've won against Washington. The Mercury were clearly one of the two best teams in the W before Sancho Lyttle got hurt. Then, during the playoffs she lost a bench player turned starter(Stephanie Talbot) and still took Seattle down to the wire in 5 games.
If not Brondello, who replaces her?
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