There are many ways to identify former Sky guard Marina Mabrey. She’s a middle child. One of the best players in the league to have never been named an All-Star. Inventor of the “Crash-Out Jar,” a running joke in which she deposited dollars after losing her temper in games.
Now, add “face of the franchise” to the list.
The Tempo signed her to a two-year max contract this past offseason, making her and Brittney Sykes the faces of the league’s first Canadian team.
She led the Tempo to an 111-104 win over the Sky Wednesday night, scoring 23 points on 9-13 from the field — and almost immediately reminding fans that the Mabrey experience contains multitudes.
Step-back threes. Incredulous conversations with the officials. Perfectly-timed floaters. Poorly-timed fouls.
Mabrey’s brief tenure with the Sky contained multitudes too. She set the single-season record for three pointers in 2023 (81) and grew her game in 2024. But her stint ended in a request to be traded from the Sky to the Sun midway through the 2024 season. At shootaround before the game, she reflected on how those experiences shaped her.
“I’ve been in leadership positions in Chicago and Connecticut where there were some things I still needed to learn, and I’m still learning right now, but I think that I took those things and put it into this team,” Mabrey told the Sun-Times.
“I think finding a home helps a lot too. I’ve jumped around trying to find a situation that works for me and my vision for myself.”
The Tempo are Mabrey’s fourth team in six years. She’s moved from Dallas to Chicago to Connecticut, now to Toronto, all before the age of 30.
Few have cycled through as many situations as Mabrey has. Except, perhaps, for the Sky.
Mabrey saw the organizational chaos firsthand, living through the peak instability of Chicago’s post-2021 championship era. Coach and general manager James Wade, who brought her to Chicago, left in the middle of the 2023 season. Then franchise pillar Kahleah Copper requested a trade.
The lesson she took was about staying true to herself.
“I think knowing that people will come in and out of organizations, you will have different people to work with, but keeping the vision for yourself that you know is you,” she said. “Regardless of who you’re playing around, who’s coming in, who’s not coming in, who’s leaving.
“I think for me, I maybe lost myself a little bit in Chicago, in trying to figure out who I was alongside everyone. … I lost the vision of who I know I can be.”
According to Sykes, who has played against Mabrey since childhood, her vision is to become an offensive juggernaut — but one who has learned to wield her emotions rather than be consumed by them.
That’s something Tempo coach Sandy Brondello, a two-time WNBA champion, is trying to facilitate.
“She’s actually quite funny,” Brondello said of Mabrey. “Now, if she crashes out, it’s usually at the officials. It’s never at her teammates, which is a good thing. Now it’s more like, ‘Just don’t get too high or too low.’
“But that’s her edge. You don’t want to change someone. That’s her competitive fire. But not letting it affect her overall game.”
Mabrey only played in Chicago from 2023-2024, but she left a mark on the organization. She embodies two of their defining characteristics: a willingness to risk draft capital to win now, and a spotty track record in retaining stars.
To acquire her from the Wings, Wade traded away a staggering amount of draft capital: a 2023 first-rounder, a 2024 first-rounder and a 2025 pick swap.
It set the tone for a philosophy that current general manager Jeff Pagliocca has maintained. In Chicago, there will be no tanking, no waiting to strike gold in the draft lottery. Every year it’s trying to bring in the best players through trades and free agency, at pretty much whatever cost.
So far, the strategy hasn’t yielded a ton of tangible success — the Sky have missed the postseason the last two years — but it also hasn’t backfired to the proportions one might have imagined.
The Mabrey deal is a perfect example. The 2023 pick the Sky surrendered ultimately became a worthless late first-rounder, and the 2025 swap was canceled entirely when the Wings won the No. 1 pick on their own. Had the Sky been able to retain Mabrey, the trade could have aged as a win.
She is now producing at the level Wade likely envisioned — 19 points per game — and that current coach Tyler Marsh respects.
His keys for success against the Tempo revolved around keeping Mabrey in vision at all times, given how quickly she gets off her shot.
“I’m a big fan of Marina, the toughness and competitiveness that she plays with — you accept some other stuff that comes with it,” Marsh said. “I remember when we played Connecticut last year and I got thrown out of that game, I saw Marina after the game, I said, ‘I pulled a you tonight.'”
The respect goes both ways.
Mabrey now genuinely likes the direction the Sky roster has gone. She said at shootaround that Pagliocca has built a tougher and more talented roster — two of his primary goals.
Despite all the turbulence, it appears both sides can still see the best in each other.