Liberty a work in progress in Chris DeMarcos first season at helm

Becky Hammon saw unprecedented success in her first season with the Las Vegas Aces.Hammon led the Aces to the franchise’s WNBA championship in 2022.She’s returned to the Finals in two of the past three seasons and added two additional rings to her collection.

Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Madeline Kenney about all things Liberty and WNBA.That first season, though, was anything but easy.Hammon served as a longtime assistant under legendary Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich before making the move to the WNBA.

She came to the Aces with a plan on how she wanted the team to play: Space the floor, shoot more 3s and move A’ja Wilson around.But there are far more complexities to being a head coach than outlining schematics.“The X’s and O’s is actually the easiest part of it,” Hammon said Tuesday ahead of the Aces facing the Liberty in the Commissioner’s Cup championship game.“Coaching the athlete, they’re individuals, too.

… Everybody learns differently, everybody communicates differently, and I think it’s important to walk in with your team and establish how to communicate with them and build relationships with them.”Under first-year head coach Chris DeMarco, nearly everything with the Liberty remains a work in progress: the system, chemistry building, player reintegration, communication and even scheduling are all still in the works.He guided the Liberty to some early success, with New York going undefeated in Cup play to earn its third appearance in the in-season tournament’s championship game.The Liberty entered Tuesday 12-8 and in fifth place, having hit a rough patch of late, dropping four of their past five games, with losses to the Washington Mystics, Los Angeles Sparks, Seattle Storm and Golden State Valkyries.DeMarco stepped into a high-pressure situation in Brooklyn.The Liberty are a superteam, with Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu and Jonquel Jones as the team’s core.

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