Liberty Notebook: Chris DeMarco, players talk fine tuning offense, team’s $600 million valuation & more
Sunday’s preseason matchup against the Connecticut Sun will be the final live opportunity for the Liberty to fine tune its offense before the start of the regular season. In last week’s 109-91 loss to the Indiana Fever, the team — as expected — looked like a work in progress playing in Chris DeMarco’s new system. DeMarco and his players now look forward to getting on the same page with the WNBA’s 30th season just a week away.
“It’s just building from the last one we had,” Sabrina Ionescu said on what she expects from Sunday’s matchup. “The first [game], it was like four days into learning the new offense, and was a little clunky, and everyone was out of position.. ” Ionescu said the coaching staff instructed players on how the offense was supposed to run, but players only performed it correctly “under 30 percent of the time.
” “They weren’t mad about it. It’s like this is normal until everyone starts to learn where they have to go,” said Ionescu. “It’s all a part of the learning process.
And so I think this next game for us is first getting that number above what it was last game, but continuing to build and chip away, and little by little, everything will feel really easy and not have to think about it. ” The new Liberty offense is expected to be different from Sandy Brondello’s read-and-react system from last season. At times, Liberty players — and general manager Jonathan Kolb — cited constant east-to-west movement and poor spacing as issues from the Brondello era.
DeMarco wants a more structured process while playing with more space. As Ionescu stated, that was on displayed in the team’s preseason opener, but the 22 turnovers is proof of the process being a work in progress. Key absences and the use of newer training camp players contributed to the struggles, too.
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