Kolb is absolutely staying. Demarco is staying at least another year. If the Liberty fire a coach of his pedigree after just one season (filled with injuries late arrivals from euroleague, etc), what other highly touted coach would dare join?

I’ll give Kolb his props. I think he has a good relationship with players. Leo credited Kolb’s persistence in reaching out to her as a reason she was grateful for the being on the Liberty. He has been able to bring in great players that other teams have coveted (Emma, Cloud, Satou) that looked great on paper and were lauded at time of signing. Unfortunately, getting some of those stars in and having them not stick may be burning bridges. Also, his previous superpower of stacking the bench with underappreciated Euro players is now a common tactic and other GMs are beating him at his own game.

Kolb’s issue is that he has stubbornly stuck to the plan that the Liberty must build around Sabrina. Listen to his comments about Sloot and Cloud. Demarco was brought in to turn Sabrina into Steph Curry. I bet bringing Satou in was also meant to reactivate her Oregon magic. For 3+ seasons now, Sabrina-centric roster construction has not activated Sabrina. Kolb needs to admit he’s wrong and change his team building approach.

It doesn’t mean he gets rid of Sabrina, he just can’t continue building the team around her when he has unique physical talent like Stewie and JJ on the team. Sab needs to turn into a role player instead of the team being a jumble of role players meant to prop her up. She needs to focus on her playmaking or her shooting (I don’t think she’ll ever amount to anything on defense) but trying to do both is making her terrible at both.

My opinion? Sab should focus on playmaking. She doesn’t have the defense to be a 3-and-D shooting guard. Her best bet is to become a Sue Bird. Or a Sloot. Give up the high volume shooting for now and focus on double-digit assists. The shot opportunities will come for her when she stops making scoring her priority.