Chris DeMarco tells The Post what hell bring to…
First-year Liberty coach Chris DeMarco takes a timeout for some Q&A with Post columnist Steve Serby, before the WNBA season suggestions off later this week.
Q: How would you describe your management fashion?
A: I might say linked. I need my workers linked. I need my gamers linked on the ground. It’s big for me to construct relationships, to construct trust. I’ve actually tried to bring our phrases to life in phrases of when we’re speaking worth, tradition, identification, actually clarify what those imply. If the gamers perceive that I care about them and I care about their careers, and they perceive that our workers does, then something we’ll do is to get them better and get this staff better, proper? We’re not just going to have you ever go through 20, half-hour of some particular person work that isn’t going to match into what we’re doing offensively or defensively. I need to elevate all of our gamers, and I need to play a lot of people, and I imagine in this roster and I imagine in the expertise and more than something I imagine in the people that they’re and their character. It’s in entrance of ’em. I’m trustworthy. I’ll say what’s on my thoughts. I’ll right if I need to right. I might somewhat have the dialog now than later where we would like to get forward of battle and all that stuff.
Q: Longtime Golden State Warrior Draymond Green once said of you: “He’s not afraid of confrontation.”
A: Draymond said that (chuckle)? We spent a long time together.
Q: Why aren’t you afraid of confrontation?
A: We’re all making an attempt to win. If you keep the final word purpose in thoughts, all that other stuff shouldn’t matter. We’re all making an attempt to win, we’re all making an attempt to get better, we’re all making an attempt to accomplish one thing. And if there’s a disagreement that’s going to occur it’s not supposed to be clean. People don’t watch sports activities because it’s clean. They watch it because it’s unpredictable. And on your approach to doing one thing particular, there’s going to be confrontation. There’s going to be these troublesome conversations. And if you sidestep those, everybody’s going to really feel it. And then the next factor that comes up there’s going to be like, “Oh, we’re not going to address that head-on, we let that other thing go.” It’s all I do know, it’s the way in which I performed, it’s the way in which I coached. We [Warriors] went to six Finals and gained 4 championships and there was confrontation. It’s a aggressive league, these are the best gamers in the world. It’s going to occur.
New York Liberty head coach Chris DeMarco yells during the first half of a preseason WNBA recreation against the Indiana Fever at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. on Saturday, April 25, 2026. Heather Khalifa for NY Post
Q: How do you inspire?
A: I don’t assume a lot of gamers need these motivational techniques at instances. I believe you need to inspire the staff as a complete when it could possibly be like you’ve got a back-to-back and people are drained and how are we going to discover a approach to win this recreation? Or it’s like issues aren’t going your approach second, third quarter, are we going to have the ability to flip this factor around? I believe those are like motivational moments more than it’s on a regular basis like rah rah, this has to be the best day of our lives, proper? The gamers have gotten right here, they’ve clearly been motivated to be the best in the world. And so I believe for us as a workers and me personally, the motivation comes in, alright, perhaps the power’s not proper today, how are we going to get it proper? And perhaps that’s shifting the rotation in a recreation. Maybe that’s taking part in a different approach. Maybe motivating them is giving them a clearer image of how they will succeed.
Q: What gained’t you tolerate?
A: The non-negotiables? I hate anyone being late. I’m a be-on-time man. I believe the power piece is important, we would like constructive power. I’ve talked to [Nets coach] Jordi Fernandez about this, about the 2 sorts of power, constructive or detrimental, there isn’t a third. The third non-negotiable, it’s the competitors piece. That’s why we’re all right here. If you need to be on the market on the ground, if you need to earn minutes, it’s about competing for those minutes and competing for those alternatives.
Q: The traits of the best Chris DeMarco basketball participant.
A: I’ll provide you with what I need our identification to be. I need our identification first and foremost, we’ve got to compete. Secondly, we’ve got to be unselfish. Then lastly we’ve got to be linked. Those are the three issues, that’s the kind of participant I might need to play with.
Q: Have you spoken to WNBA coaches of the problem of teaching girls?
A: I’ve talked to a lot of different current girls’s coaches or former. … I’ve gotten good advice. The majority have said it’s basketball, proper? I even had one coach, I’m not going to identify their identify, said she had gone from a males’s skilled league to then a girls’s school staff, and she had said it wasn’t males and girls for her. The hardest factor for her was pro-college. And that caught with me because I’m going pro-pro. I’ve clearly taken advice from all people and I’ve listened to a lot of people, including like our Liberty legends and all the pieces, but so far for camp it appears like any camp I’ve been a half of as a coach, but I’m just shifting from that assistant teaching chair and now the pinnacle coach, proper?
New York Liberty Head Coach Chris DeMarco participates in a clinic with Uncommon Excellence Girls Middle School at a welcome event for Satou Sabally at the Brooklyn Basketball Training Center, Friday, April 17, 2026, in Brooklyn, NY. Sabally is a WNBA three-time All-Star. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST
Q: What do you want best about your staff?
A: I like the flexibility second-best. I just like the championship pedigree first (chuckle). I used to be a half of that Warriors staff where we hadn’t gotten over the hump before, and I keep in mind how laborious it was to get over the hump, and when we did, what that finally meant for us going ahead. You’ve felt it, you’ve seen it, you recognize what it takes, and we’ve got some of that in the locker room. If it hasn’t been at the WNBA degree, we’ve had a lot of that internationally, we’ve had a lot of that at the school degree. We have gamers right here who’ve gained.
Q: And with that come great expectations.
A: Embrace ’em, proper? The largest factor for me is just discovering that consistency each yr of giving us a probability the correct approach through our identification, through the daily grind of competing for a championship. That’s all you possibly can ask for is that we play laborious every evening, our followers acknowledge it, our opponents really feel it and then we’re in the combo every yr to strive to win.
Q: Whatever comes to thoughts about some of your gamers: Breanna Stewart.
A: Swag (chuckle).
Q: Sabrina Ionescu.
A: Focused.
Q: Jonquel Jones.
A: Sniper.
Q: Satou Sabally.
A: Versatile.
Q: Betnijah Laney-Hamilton.
A: Competitor.
Q: What is the most invaluable piece of teaching you took from Steve Kerr?
A: Having spent 13 seasons with him, nearly 14, his messaging was so good. He understood the construct of a season, breaking the season into different elements and making sure that we understood it was a marathon, proper? I believe the tradition of having the ability to come in the building wanting to be there every day, whether or not it’s from the workers or the gamers, it was a actually, actually aggressive setting. … But it was also joyful and compassionate. Whether it was the staff dinners, whether or not it was bringing different people in to converse, whether or not it was just in between the follow and the lifting and the treatment, it felt like a household all the time. And then lastly, just his means to regulate. He would always do what was best for the staff.
Q: Other coaches you admired?
A: There’s too many. I don’t need to disrespect anyone (chuckle). I spent time around a lot of future head coaches. Mark Jackson had a very large affect on me in my first two seasons. Mark gave me a platform to have the ability to have a voice even in my early years that gave me the boldness to assume I might change into a head coach, proper? I’m doing my first-year intern and he’s asking me who I really feel are the top 5 level guards in the league, and I’m telling him who the 5 are and he’ll problem it, and what do I do, is I’ve to do my research to make sure that I’ve the correct evidence behind what I’m saying. … If he’s staying at the power all day, so at 9 o’clock we’ve got League Pass on and I can ask him basketball questions. … We had a lot of head coaches come through — Michael Malone was on that early workers, Luke Walton, Mike Brown, Willie Green, Kenny Atkinson.
New New York Liberty head coach Chris DeMarco addresses a press convention at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, Tuesday, December 10, 2025. DeMarco met with the New York media during a press convention. JASON SZENES/ NY POST
Q: What do you recall about Mike Brown?
A: Mike’s very detailed and he actually is aware of the sport. The gamers actually respect him.
Q: Describe your one-on-ones in follow with Kevin Durant.
A: You’re younger, you’re coming up, the cool half of the job is still having the ability to compete against the best in the world. I’m one of many who’ve tried to defend him in follow. Really they just needed a physique and I occur to be 6-[foot]-6 and I attempted to be bodily, that’s all that was.
Q: Steph Curry.
A: His talent, and who he’s as a particular person just touched so many people in that group. Gave a lot of people, not just myself, alternatives. And not just him, clearly Klay [Thompson], Draymond, [Andre] Iguodala, you talked about Okay.D., all these gamers, their greatness allowed so many people in the group these unbelievable alternatives to be in basketball and grow in basketball. Like to see their performances, what it did for the Bay Area and those followers.
Q: Who are coaches exterior of basketball who you admire?
A: I spent some time with Brandon Staley, who’s defensive coordinator with the Saints. I used to be there for their training camp when he was with the Chargers. I realized a lot from that training camp, some of the stuff I still use today. It’s such a long record of people.
Q: Were you a Packers fan growing up?
A: My dad is from Long Island, I lived on Long Island before I moved to [Appleton] Wisconsin. Some of the more in style issues — ice fishing, looking, the Packers — because I went to a lot of sporting occasions with my father, I didn’t gravitate toward that. If the Buffalo Bills obtained bounced, then I’d help the Packers. My dad was a Bills fan. I appreciated what he appreciated.
Q: Describe the affect your father Sal had on you.
A: My father was my best good friend. He was a coach himself. I had two older brothers, and they wished to play soccer, baseball, basketball, so he would get VHS tapes, and he’d watch those tapes and he taught himself how to coach. And he was a youth coach for not just my brothers and my youthful sister and myself, but for your entire group in Appleton, Wisconsin, for about 15 years. He coached baseball, he coached basketball, he coached soccer. … He was so demanding in-game. He was vocal in what he wished, but he cared so a lot about the children that he was in a position to coach them laborious because they knew he cared.
Q: Could think about how proud he’s of you proper now?
A: It’s clearly not the only motive why this means so a lot to me coming back to New York, being the pinnacle coach of this unbelievable group and franchise. New York was in my coronary heart my complete life, and fortuitously, I used to be in a position to FaceTime him when we gained in ’15 with the Warriors, which was a actually cool second. I used to be in a position to share in some of the successes of me changing into a coach with him still. … I used to be pondering about my household and the sacrifices that they made for me to get there. I used to be just so grateful to them to enable me to have been in this place.
Q: Describe teaching the Bahamas National Team.
A: Pride. From where we began to having a probability to go to the [Paris] Olympics in the fourth quarter, and just the grind and sacrifice it took from all people who was a half of that. When you’re speaking about sources, it’s not the same as some of these other groups that we had to compete against. We’re speaking about a nation of 400,000 people. Just so proud. And proud of our NBA gamers and NCAA gamers to be a half of one thing that meant so a lot to the nation, and for the gamers before them, the Mykal Thompsons, Bahamians and Rick Fox that didn’t get a probability to play for the Bahamas because there wasn’t a staff. I really feel like there’s an unbelievable alternative going ahead of sustained success for the Bahamas National Team on the lads’s aspect, and clearly Jonquel being right here.
Q: Was your boyhood dream to play in the NBA?
A: Probably, but realistically I wished to go to Europe and play. … You just always need to keep taking part in at the next degree, and that was always my dream. Honestly, I didn’t comprehend it teaching was a half of that, but the second I began teaching I spotted it was in me, and shoutout to my father clearly, and my mom by the way in which, she was at all the video games, she used to keep the box scores. She’s very educated about the sport.
Q: Edgewood College and Dominican University.
A: I made a lot of lifelong mates at Edgewood, some of my best mates to this day. And then at Dominican, I discovered my love of basketball again. I lived next to Dominican the past six years. Marin County’s home for me.
Q: How long did you spend at Isilon?
A: Isilon was a data storage company that EMC purchased and it was a company out of Seattle. And actually, if it wasn’t for my boss Tara Dezao. I wouldn’t even be right here proper now because at the time, I might barely afford to live my first yr at the Warriors, and Tara allowed me to still do all this work at home. I had the internship at the Warriors, I did however many hours a week for Isilon and then I bartended to get through that first yr.
Q: What drives you?
A: I’m passionate. There’s nothing like still having the ability to compete. There’s nothing prefer it.
Q: Biggest adversity?
A: As a participant I had back surgical procedure at 18. I ruptured a disc. In life, off the court, it was the passing of my father 10 years in the past.
Q: Aside from going to Jones Beach, any Long Island recollections?
A: Besides seeing household and estimated pizza and bagels, not likely. … I’ve gone to Wo Hop, 17 Mott Street, my complete life. And then there’s that outside court like a block away, there’s always people hooping on the market.
New York Liberty Head Coach Chris DeMarco participates in a clinic with Uncommon Excellence Girls Middle School at a welcome event for Satou Sabally at the Brooklyn Basketball Training Center, Friday, April 17, 2026, in Brooklyn, NY. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST
Q: Favorite film?
A: “A Bronx Tale.”
Q: Favorite entertainer?
A: I’m just a large fan of comedy in common. I like improv and I like going to see comedians.
Q: Favorite meal?
A: Aji de gallena, it’s a Peruvian dish, it’s fairly basic.
Q: What’s so great about Brooklyn?
A: The group. … It just appears like a household.
Q: Your message to Liberty followers?
A: I perceive what this means to the group. I perceive what this means to the followers. We have the best followers in the WNBA. I can’t wait for the video games to start.
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