How Marina Mabrey unlocked all-star abilities with Tempo

TORONTO — At the start of the year, Marina Mabrey was left unprotected by the Connecticut Sun ahead of the expansion draft. Now, less than four months later, she’s tying league records and has earned her first-ever all-star nod with the Toronto Tempo.

A lot has changed for the star three-point shooter between this season and last. But as she’ll tell you, none of that growth came accidentally. 

“I wanted to play a lot, but I also just wanted to play better, like I wanted to be the version of myself that I saw as a little girl,” Mabrey said. “When you see that vision, it’s like you don’t really know how to get there, but you know that it’s gonna get better somehow, so I just try to put the work in every day and let the results speak for themselves.”

Mabrey has called 2025 the “worst season” of her career. While with the Sun, she averaged 14.4 points per game over 31.5 minutes while shooting 27 per cent from the three-point line. Even before 2025, she’d never surpassed 15.0 points per game on average.

Now, she’s first in the league in three-pointers made, and top four in average points per game. The Tempo’s first-ever all-star is averaging 21.0 points per game on 39.2 per cent three-point shooting over 29.4 minutes per game. Mabrey tied the single-game WNBA points record with 53 against the Los Angeles Sparks, and tied the record for most threes in a game with nine, twice. Each just six days apart. 

So what enabled Mabrey to make a leap this size in just one year?

The unique opportunities that accompany expansion certainly played a role. From the moment Mabrey became the first WNBA player to receive a million-dollar contract, she was handed a host of new responsibilities and allowances. 

“I always say to the great players, it’s when they come in, if they buy into playing in the right way, their success will come, and I think Marina — sometimes you just need to be in a system that, maybe you got a little longer leash, and we put her in the right spots here, but Marina’s done all of it,” Tempo head coach Sandy Brondello said. 

Mabrey has been given the green light to lean into her strengths ever since landing in Toronto. For the first time in her eight-year career, she’s the star player her team is focused on elevating.

“We have a different personnel here, so it’s kind of hard to compare (to last year). They had a really big inside presence in Connecticut, so we were running it around Tina Charles a lot, whereas here it’s a lot of stagger screens, it’s a lot of movement on the outside, a lot of isolation guard play that is kind of geared and catered towards me,” Mabrey said. 

WNBA expansion isn’t just about expanding to a new city, as Mabrey has shown; it’s about expanding opportunities for overlooked players to break out and unlock an extension of their game. 

Mabrey’s success is not strictly a product of her own growth, discipline and skill. It is just as much the story of how the players she’s building alongside in Toronto have surrounded her. 

“My teammates, they embrace me, and they sacrifice so much for me,” she said. “They’re always giving up shots to get a better shot, to give it to me. Or they’ll give up a layup to give me a three-pointer. So I always have to acknowledge them and show them love, because I say, ‘I got the award, but it’s really our whole team that got the award, because we were able to highlight a player.’”

Tempo point guard Julie Allemand has been responsible for many of those sacrificial decisions that set Mabrey up. The two starters found quick chemistry, something they’ve used to exploit defences through the first half of the season.

“I can’t say enough about my teammates. It’s so easy when they’re continually screening for you, and Julie literally throws the ball right to my pocket. It is actually wild,” Mabrey said.

Brondello shows Mabrey a lot of trust as well. After Kiki Rice and Brittney Sykes were sidelined by early-season injuries, Brondello counted on Mabrey to step up as a leader and key producer.

“I couldn’t be more grateful for obviously my coach, you know, I have the ultimate green light, but also holding me to a high standard of making everybody else better,” Mabrey said. 

Brondello chose to coach in Toronto because she wanted to help build a team up from nothing. Part of the allure was the players with untapped talent that would become part of the inaugural roster, and Mabrey turned out to be just that. Brondello challenges Mabrey to reach new levels of her game — specifically on defence — with rebounding and off-ball actions. In her first availability after Mabrey was announced as an all-star, Brondello expressed her excitement but also her desire to see the level Mabrey would reach next. 

“I think Marina, we’re trying to make her move a little bit off the ball a lot, we certainly want the ball in her hands, but I think we’re adding to what she can be, and excited to see what the ceiling is for her as we move forward.”

A new environment was the perfect grounds for Mabrey’s breakout year, but Canada can’t take all the credit. She started working on her game really seriously in the off-season, long before she crossed the border. 

Three-point shooting was a main focus of her training as Mabrey explained in a recent episode of Sue Bird’s podcast. She explained how inconsistent footwork and a lack of shooting routine were the culprits of her inconsistent results. 

“If I took 10 step-back threes, all the footwork would look different,” Mabrey said on the podcast. “I’d be at the same spot every time, but it just doesn’t look the same. I didn’t even have the footwork down to be doing all that. So I went back to footwork and fixed that, and then I went back to my ball handling and fixed that because it slowed me down.”

Now Mabrey’s three-pointers look the same whether she’s shooting from the arc or from 32 feet away. Her approach and feet are the biggest giveaway for whether the ball will swish in or rattle off. 

The 29-year-old will show off that footwork at the three-point contest on Friday night before she takes to the all-star court for the very first time on Saturday.