DeMarco compares Ionescu to Curry

On the way to her first WNBA title in 2024, Sabrina Ionescu made four-time NBA champion Steph Curry sweat out whether he could beat New York’s All-Star guard in a first-of-its-kind 3-point shootout.

Newly hired Liberty coach Chris DeMarco may have taken notice.

Especially since he arrived in Downtown Brooklyn last week after winning four rings with Curry’s Golden State Warriors as both a player-development guru and assistant coach the past 13 years.

“The comparisons are interesting,” DeMarco ceded .“I get it. She can shoot the heck out of the ball. She’s a very smart playmaker.

“Where I compare them is just their focus,” he added. “I’d say what makes them most alike is just their focus on the game of basketball. And it really is elite.”

Curry had to drain every ball on his final rack to beat Ionescu’s 26 points from behind the NBA 3-point line at the 2024 All-Star weekend in Indianapolis.

Though the two-time NBA MVP ultimately got it done that night, Ionescu was eager to have a rematch, something that hasn’t taken place yet.

“Hopefully, this isn’t the last time we do this,” she said.

Maybe DeMarco can set that up once he establishes himself as an apt replacement for the most successful coach in the history of the franchise, Sandy Brondello.

Selected first overall as a “transformational” player in 2020, Ionescu has certainly become the face of the organization over the past five years, even though New York is talent-rich with the likes of former WNBA and Finals Most Valuable Players Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones.

The 28-year-old Walnut Creek, California, native has grown along with the team during her first six seasons, the first of which was derailed by a severe ankle injury while the Liberty were forced to play in the bubble in Florida due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since she began plying her trade in Downtown Brooklyn, Ionescu has emerged not only as a fan favorite but as one of the most reliable and productive players in the fast-emerging league.

While the WNBA and Players’ Association continued to work out a collective bargaining agreement, Ionescu was spotted taking in a Utah Jazz game alongside DeMarco, even before his hiring became official.

Whether she was picking the brain of the 40-year-old Wisconsin native or trying to figure out how he intended to re-establish the Liberty as title contenders following last year’s first-round playoff exit, Ionescu clearly intrigued DeMarco.

Even if it wasn’t about comparing her to the future Hall of Fame shooting guard.

“There’s some parallels to Steph, but overall, she’s her own player,” DeMarco noted.

“There’s some things that I think she’s done great, and there’s some things I think she could do better, as well as the rest of our players. That’s part of our job as a coaching staff, to get everyone there.”

He’ll have to do better than Brondello, whom he replaced following general manager Jonathan Kolb’s decision to seek a more “innovative” voice in the Liberty locker room.

“We needed an industry leader when it comes to player development,“ Kolb said. ”We have to be an organization where our star players are routinely adding layers to their game, but also where our role players are developing and turning into starters.

“And we need to plant our flag as the home of development where players around the league know that this is where you come if you want to be at your very best.“

Ionescu won a team-record 107 games, grabbed New York’s first Commissioner’s Cup title, went to back-to-back Finals and enjoyed a parade down the Canyon of Heroes alongside Brondello over the previous four years.

She was unbowed by the Liberty’s three-game exit at the hands of the Phoenix Mercury last fall, insisting that she and the rest of the deepest roster in the WNBA were looking forward to running it back in 2026.

But that was before she knew that Brondello would be in Toronto guiding the league’s first international franchise following her unexpected ousting from the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush.

“I’m excited for next year. I think we’re going to use this to continue to motivate us,” Ionescu said.

“I think you gotta cherish those years where everything seems to be going well, like you’re healthy, you got the players out there, and this year just wasn’t our year with that.”

Next year had better be, especially with Stewart and Jones expected back once the CBA gets worked out and free agents can re-sign.

Brondello called 2025 her most challenging year as a coach in the league, in which she won two titles, including the 2014 crown in Phoenix, a decade before she led the Liberty to the promised land.

New York was besieged by injuries throughout the campaign and settled for the No. 5 seed after winning 27 of 44 games.

Even Ionescu missed six games with various ailments after watching Stewart and Jones sit out for at least a month each.

DeMarco isn’t here to improve on last year’s first-round failure. He’s here to deliver Title II to Brooklyn.

And he’s enthused that Ionescu intends to be on board for the duration of his tenure here, be it a long or short one.

“I know with the Warriors, we were always trying to find maybe the next Andre Iguodala, Shawn Livingston, and you know those people are one of a kind, so we’re lucky to have one in Sabrina,” he said.

GIVE ME LIBERTY: Ionescu became the latest pro athlete to be victimized by a burglary earlier this week. According to the Los Angeles Police Department, Ionescu’s home in L.A. was broken into Monday night while she and her husband, NFL lineman Hroniss Grasu, were out. Several handbags valued at more than $60,000 were reportedly stolen from the couple’s residence. The investigation into the burglary is ongoing, according to the L.A.P.D.

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After holding his introductory presser at Barclays Center last week, DeMarco visited the brand new Brooklyn Basketball Training Center, where he again met with media members while helping to coach athletes from the Uncommon Excellence Girls Charter School.

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The Liberty have yet to release the 2026 schedule, but Brooklyn basketball fanatics are doubtlessly looking forward to Brondello’s first game back in our borough with the expansion Tempo. Brondello, the coach of Team Australia in international basketball, chose to go north of the border over coaching last year’s first overall pick, Paige Bueckers, in Dallas.  “I had a few options, but in the end I was really intrigued about starting from the very beginning and building something with really good people and in a different country,” she said last month. “This is Canada’s team, and I thought that would be very exciting, and I’m up for every challenge.”