Lady Liberty: Aussie central to WNBA club’s title chase

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Lady Liberty: Aussie central to WNBA club’s title chase

Lady Liberty: Aussie central to WNBA club’s title chase

Sandy Brondello is quick to acknowledge the elephant in the room.

And it’s not her New York Liberty’s 0-5 WNBA Finals record.

It’s an actual elephant … or a person in an elephant suit, to be specific.

The Australian coach will skip downstairs from her Brooklyn apartment, a stone’s throw from Barclays Centre on Thursday night (Friday AEST), for game one of the best-of-five WNBA Finals against Minnesota Lynx.

Almost 18,000 fans, including some of the city’s biggest celebrities, will be there with high expectations as the only WNBA foundation club without a title tries again.

Justin Timberlake, Fran Lebowitz, Jason Sudeikis, Michael Imperioli, Amy Poehler, Spike Lee, Alicia Keys, Colin Kaepernick, Floyd Mayweather, Billie Jean King, Russell Wilson and Megan Rapinoe have all sat courtside in recent weeks.

But Ellie the Elephant, the club’s mascot since their move from Madison Square Garden in 2021, has its own Nike shoe and could be the biggest star of them all.

“The last two years, since we started winning again, the buzz around game day is just great,” Brondello tells AAP.

“Everyone loves playing in Brooklyn; all the stars come out, you’ve got Ellie the Elephant … we live here, walk around, you can see the city’s invested in it.

“New York, it’s the Mecca of basketball. Where the media attention is and I think I’ve handled that well.

“You go to other cities and there’s hardly anyone at a press conference, then in New York there’s 20 journalists at every game and playoffs is packed. And that’s how it should be.

“I can see the Manhattan skyline from my apartment, which is about 20 metres from the front door of the arena.

“I love it, what we’ve grown here … I’ve got to experience so many crazy and wonderful things.”

The centre of the basketball universe is a long way from basketball’s Centre of Excellence at Canberra’s AIS, where Brondello honed her craft under super coach Phil Smyth.

It was there the teenager grew up, Smyth smoothing out her jump shot and teaching her how to use the washing machine.

She remembers the former Boomers coach and fellow playmaker pointing out that her clothes were in the dryer, when she’d asked him why it wasn’t filling up with water.

“He had to do that because my mum used to do everything for me,” she laughed.

“I wore the No.6 because of him; he was my idol growing up and he’d give me individuals (work-outs) at AIS. He’s just an amazing human being.”

Like Smyth, Brondello went on to become a four-time Olympian and could have sat alongside Lauren Jackson, Patty Mills, Joe Ingles and Andrew Gaze as a five-time starter had the Opals not narrowly missed qualification for the 1992 Games.

Still she finished with two silver and one bronze medals, the latter Australia’s first in the sport in 1996.

Brondello added another Olympic bronze from the sidelines this year in Paris, responsible for one of the great on-the-fly coaching feats after her team was flogged by Nigeria in the opening game.

The 56-year-old splits her year between Brooklyn and Phoenix, where she spent eight seasons as head coach, while the Opals job means there are few quiet moments.

“Yeah, but I love it. I get a lot of energy from it and always tell people I’ve got two dream jobs, coaching the Opals and Liberty,” the mother of two said.

“We’re all still on cloud nine from that (Paris bronze).

“To win a championship now, it’d go down as one of the greatest seasons ever.”

Brondello’s team, led by American superstars Sabrina Ionescu and Breanna Stewart, went just as well last season before a 3-1 Finals loss to defending champions Las Vegas.

This week they brushed them aside 3-1 in a comprehensive semi-final series win.

Brondello’s again within reach of adding a second title to the one she clinched in her first campaign with the Mercury 10 years ago.

“We could have, should have last year,” she said.

“We just used it as motivation and it made us a better team.

“The job’s not done, it’s never been done and it’d be great if we could, but we can’t look past game one.”

There is arguably no more prominent year to end the drought.

Almost one million viewers tuned in for game three of the Liberty-Aces series last week, the most-watched semi-final in 22 years.

The league, featuring eight Australia players this year including Finals-bound Lynx star Alanna Smith, will earn more than $2 billion on its next 11-year broadcast deal to more than triple its value.

Brondello said the rivalry of top-two draft picks Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, at Indiana and Chicago respectively, had sparked the deserved surge.

“The WNBA, women’s basketball, it’s a movement,” she said.

“Finally getting the love we’ve deserved for so long.

“We have so many great players, but Caitlin and Angel doing what they’ve done, it’s big business.

“The keyboard warriors … it can get a bit toxic and we’d rather they stay at home.

“But I love her (Clark’s) confidence.

“People are watching and there’s storylines.”

Brondello hopes the Opals’ Paris storyline, and last year’s Finals loss, will contribute to a happier ending for the Liberty this time.

“It’s funny, how you navigate life,” she said.

“It’s not all going to be high, so it’s what you do in the low moments that helps you move forward.

“They’re the lessons and Paris was a great one, getting our butts kicks and playing terrible, terrible basketball and how we could change it.

“I take something from every experience and I’m just very prepared.

“When I get to the game I’m very calm and the players are going to feel my confidence and calmness.”

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