Even before Marina Mabrey had ever stepped onto the Bordeaux-and-Borealis blue court, it felt as though her breakout with the Toronto Tempo was a matter of when, not if.
Rachid Meziane, who coached the 29-year-old last season, did his best to give fans a heads-up on who the expansion franchise was getting.
“She’s crazy, I mean crazy in a good way,” the Connecticut Sun bench boss said about Mabrey before taking on the Tempo in their inaugural pre-season game. “She’s someone who is easy to love because she plays with a lot of energy, and she’s a competitive player. She plays with her heart … someone who likes to win, and she would do everything on the floor to win.
“You are lucky to have her.”
And in the months since, Mabrey has more than lived up to that high praise.
Not only leading the Tempo to new heights, but also making good on a promise to “unlock” her game this season — an ambition first theorized back at Media Day.
On Tuesday, the eighth-year guard actualized that goal as she was named a WNBA all-star for the first time in her career. An accolade that came on the heels of two Eastern Conference Player of the Week nods, a handful of lights-out shooting performances and one 53-point game for the ages that tied the league’s single-game scoring record.
Not to mention she’s buoyed an injury-riddled Tempo, keeping the team within striking distance of the playoffs at the midway point of its maiden voyage. Mabrey has played in — and started — all but one of the Tempo’s 21 games so far, averaging a career-high 20.6 points, 3.7 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.1 steals. She’s also tied for the league lead in total threes made, and of the 20 players to attempt at least 100 triples, Mabrey ranks third in efficiency with a 39.2 per cent conversion rate.
And she’s done all of that while facing more defensive attention than any other player in the entire league. The WNBA has tracked “gravity” since last year, a metric that measures how much a player pulls defenders towards them above expected. Mabrey’s league-leading 12.9 gravity score is 1.5 points higher than second-ranked Sonia Citron.
“She can hurt you in so many different ways, right?” said Dallas Wings head coach Jose Fernandez of the Tempo’s star guard. “She can post you up, she can get you on your hip, get to the rim. She gets to the free-throw line, she’s dangerous as soon as she crosses half-court. And she plays with a huge amount of moxy, which is a credit to her … there’s no fear.”
The numbers certainly make a strong case for Mabrey’s first-ever All-Star selection. But there’s more to it than that. Because if it were only a matter of opportunity or playing time, well, Mabrey averaged more minutes under Meziane last year (10th most in the WNBA), and she’d previously spent multiple seasons as a starter for teams like the Wings and Chicago Sky.
So, why now?
“Timing.”
As Golden State Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase explained on Wednesday: “I think it was time for Mabrey to lead a franchise, (be a) number one.”
Which might seem odd, considering, by her own admission, Mabrey was taken by the Tempo in expansion after the “worst” season of her career in 2025. The star guard averaged 14.4 points on 47.7 per cent true shooting, which was the lowest for her since Year 1 in the WNBA.
But it was exactly that adversity — underlined by multiple injuries — which shaped Mabrey into a leader the Tempo were willing to bet on.
“Yeah, I wanted to play a lot. But I also just wanted to play better,” Mabrey said when asked what her expectations were of landing in Toronto after a down year. “I wanted to be the version of myself that I saw as a little girl. When you see that vision, you don’t really know how to get there. But you know that it’s going to get there somehow.”
And it has. Mabrey put in an immense amount of work throughout the off-season and has subsequently taken major strides. Improving a three-level scorer who can create on the ball, with elite pull-up prowess, but also off-ball with timely cutting and curling, which Brondello has emphasized. It’s manifested in more paint production and downhill driving — finishing at a career-best 72.9 per cent at the rim. She’s also grown as a playmaker, reading early doubles, traps and blitzes with more comfort, all while posting the best assist percentage (24.7) of her near-decade in the WNBA.
Mabrey is evolving into the idealized version of herself as a basketball player in real-time, and doing it for a team, coach and organization that believed she could, maybe more than anyone else ever had. Because not all opportunities are created equal and when the Tempo signed Mabrey to the WNBA’s first-ever million-dollar deal, it presented her with a platform she’d never been offered before.
“She’s had some really good years in the past. She’s played with some really good players, but over those years, you still have to play a (specific) role. With an expansion team, I think she realized that she could come in and probably have a bigger role,” Brondello explained. “That’s the opportunity, and making the most of that … I think Marina, in the end, has the confidence to go out and show that. It’s not to prove to anyone, I think she’s proven that over the years, but I think it’s the opportunity. It’s the right time, right place.”
And her time appears to have arrived.
Which some may not have seen coming, but those who’ve watched Mabrey up close aren’t phased in the slightest.
“Honestly, no surprise,” said Arike Ogunbowale, a four-time all-star who was a teammate of Mabrey for seven seasons, split between college and the WNBA. “I think she just needed the opportunity.”
But call it humility or maybe just an understanding of the long-winding road — joining four teams through seven seasons — to get to this point, but Mabrey admits the path to stardom wasn’t always simple.
“I had no idea how hard it was … this league is so hard. Every day you’re playing, you’re practicing, they’re challenging you, they’re holding you accountable. You’re moving teams. You’ve got different teammates. You have to figure out how to work with people and so on, while your body’s tired, et cetera.”
But through it all, “belief” has been one thing Mabrey has maintained, no matter the obstacle.
“I just think that it’s easy to lose that vision and that belief in yourself. But I don’t think I ever lost it. So, I think that’s why I got where I am.”
It’s also gotten her to Chicago at the end of the month, when she’ll be recognized as one of the league’s premier players at All-Star Weekend for the very first time. An occasion she’ll get to closely share with friends and family, as Mabrey has a home in the area — The Windy City being one of the spots she’s put down roots throughout her unpredictable pro journey.
“I think, as a basketball player, especially a WNBA player, you wake up every single day, you’re working out, you’re trying to get a competitive advantage somehow. … And sometimes you still come up short. I think you have to be able to accept failure and get back up and try again. And that’s always been my motto. Being the 19th pick, I wasn’t supposed to be in this league still. I wasn’t supposed to be on a team. I wasn’t supposed to be playing. I wasn’t supposed to be starting. I wasn’t supposed to be a star.”
Yet, now she is. And she’s earned it, right on time.
