New York Liberty hire NBA’s Sonia Raman to bolster coaching staff in title defense

Raman had been on the radar of the Chicago Sky back in 2023 when they were looking for a new head coach to succeed interim Emre Vatansever following James Wade’s mid-season departure. According to Annie Costabile of the Chicago Sun-Times, Raman was interviewed once but then Chicago ended up hiring Teresa Weatherspoon. 

“I know she’s gonna bring so much to the Liberty,” Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins said. “I mean, her passion for player development, X’s and O’s, analytics, the way she studied the game back in her college days at MIT, and just having so much success there, bringing success with us in the last couple years of the Grizzlies. I’m fired up for her. I know she’s gonna mesh really well with the players and coaching staff there.”

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The news of a new addition to New York’s coaching staff comes days after former assistant coach Roneeka Hodges accepted a job on the Connecticut Sun’s staff working under new Sun head coach Rachid Meziane. 

While Hodges’ departure came as a surprise at first — why would an assistant of three years leave a situation where she was in a position to compete for championships — it became clear that Hodges wanted more than what New York was willing to provide. In New York, she was the Liberty’s third assistant behind Olaf Lange who Jonquel Jones has deemed “the professor” for his ability to teach schemes and develop superstars, and Zach O’Brien who specializes in guard development. On Monday, WNBA offseason league Athletes Unlimited (AU) also announced that Hodges took a position as a facilitator (how AU refers to the head coaches) in addition to her new role in Connecticut. 

Raman’s hire signals a desire within the Liberty’s front office to become more competitive in their defense of the franchise’s first championship. She will bring a different type of basketball mind to the Liberty’s staff, one that has a background in analytics and will be able to challenge and also support Brondello’s staff in high pressure situations. 

There were questions about the decision making of Brondello and her staff following Game 1 of the 2024 WNBA Finals when the Liberty elected to keep both Sabrina Ionescu and Courtney Vandersloot together on the floor during a defensive possession. What followed was a four-point play from the Lynx’s Courtney Williams with 5.5 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter that eventually took a game the Liberty once led by 18 points to overtime, and that overtime period resulted in a Game 1 loss.  

“We are excited to welcome [Raman] to New York as we prepare for our title defense in 2025,” Brondello said in a press release about the hire. “Specializing in the offensive side of the ball, she brings a wealth of experience to our staff and aligns with our core principles of play as we continue to evolve.”

Raman’s offensive specialization dates back to her days as the winningest coach for the MIT Engineer’s women’s basketball team. While leading a Division III and NEWMAC program for 12 seasons, Raman developed a reputation for constantly implementing new offensive sets. She often attended Boston Celtics practices and returned to MIT practice with a bunch of new end-of-game plays for her team to try out and implement. 

But Raman’s offensive creativity wasn’t just what deemed her attractive to New York. Her coaching philosophy reflects the standards and principles the Liberty have integrated ever since Brondello was hired in 2022. Her MIT teams were “unselfish” and “problem solvers,” two qualities that are in conjunction with the Liberty’s dedication to collective sacrifice.  

What also was attractive to New York was Raman’s background and previous life before coaching full time. Raman graduated from Tufts University with an International Relations degree, went on to get her law degree from Boston College, and then assumed roles in organization compliance at the U.S. Department of Labor and Fidelity Investments.

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Hiring someone with an interdisciplinary background isn’t a first for the Liberty. Golden State Valkyries general manager and former Liberty assistant GM Ohemaa Nyanin too was a student of international relations and global policy, backgrounds not just in sports or the game of basketball.  

How does Raman apply her legal background to coaching? When speaking to Boston College Law School Magazine back in 2020, she drew on how she learned to problem solve and assess different situations from all angles. There’s critical thinking applications that can be made to how she analyzes a scouting report, how she approaches coaches meetings and contributes to film sessions. “There’s a methodical approach and an analytical side to that,” she said.

For Raman, there’s also an analytical approach to how she develops players. Grizzlies big Santi Aldama praised Raman just last year for how she encouraged him to focus on finding shooters for higher percentage shots. In Raman’s final full season with Memphis, Aldama’s assists per game increased by over 76% from 1.3 during the 2022-2023 season to 2.3 during the following season. 

What will really be a boon about Raman’s presence on the Liberty’s staff is her experience not only with high level numbers and data, but her ability to weed out what numbers are worth the most attention. WNBA franchises were introduced just last season to second spectrum data, a tool that NBA teams have had at their disposal for years. While it was a welcome sight to WNBA executives and coaches, some struggled knowing what to do with so much data.

“Jumping over to the NBA, that was just a huge leap in my world of analytics,” Raman said a few years ago as a speaker at MIT’s Sloan Sports Analytics conference. “There’s data on everything. The challenge is really what matters the most. What’s really important. Not just what’s noisy data or what’s recent data but what really matters.”

As the Liberty approach free agency and the Jan. 21 negotiation period, they aim to be aggressive as always. But their willingness to bolster their coaching staff while more than half the league will begin 2025 with new coaches speaks to how New York knows what’s coming. WNBA teams are going to get more creative and more modern, and New York will be ready for it.