Marina Mabrey talks leadership, trash talk and ‘being a little demon’ in her return

Sun head coach Rachid Meziane had told the media that the “goal” was for Mabrey to return after All-Star Weekend. During the weekend, The Next caught up with Mabrey backstage at ‘Unrivaled HQ’, a two-day activation where Mabrey led a shooting competition with fans and offered them advice on how to make layups and her specialty — knocking down 3-pointers.

After the event, Mabrey revealed that she was gearing up for her return to the court.

“I’m feeling good,” Mabrey said. “I’m ready to be a little demon.”

The self-proclaimed “little demon” wasted no time getting right back into the swing of things on the court when she drew the double-team and elegantly dished a pass to Tina Charles, who found forward Olivia Nelson-Ododa under the basket for an easy layup. Mabrey’s playmaking continued with another effortless pass, this time to Bria Hartley, who finished at the rim to extend the Sun’s lead over LA to seven.

With 49 seconds remaining in the first, Mabrey knocked down her first three of the game and sent the crowd into a frenzy of cheers and applause. Money Mabrey was back and finished with seven points, three assists and two steals in her first game in a little over a month.

Despite the Sun’s loss to the Sparks, 101-86, it was apparent that what Mabrey also brings to the floor is a fire and level of competitiveness. Teammate and veteran leader Tina Charles once said that her first impression of Mabrey was that she’s “feisty” while Mabrey’s fellow WNBA peers recently voted her as the third biggest trash talker in the league in an anonymous poll conducted by The Athletic.

One player even noted how she’s “always in WNBA scuffles or around them,” which seemed to the case on Thursday night against LA when she and Sparks guard Rae Burrell appeared to exchange words in the fourth quarter.

We asked Mabrey about her trash talking. With a smile, she said that she was “barely” on the list before explaining how trash talking is “great” for women’s sports.

“[Alyssa Thomas] definitely took the prize on that one, she runs it for sure,” Mabrey said. “But honestly, I love that about her, and I think it’s really great for our game because I know that we are women, and sometimes that’s not really acceptable. And I think it’s great to be able to trash talk, show emotion and still be able to go and be a woman.”

Mabrey’s leadership growth on the sidelines

As an instrumental piece of the Sun’s offense and one of their core leaders, Mabrey was averaging a career-high 15.2 points, four assists and five rebounds before sustaining a knee injury on June 20 against the Dallas Wings, which kept her out for a little over four weeks.

“I think I saw my team make a big jump on the court together and come together even without me out there. So just seeing the mental toughness and the strength that my teammates have, kind of inspired me to be able to go out there and do more for them when I get back. So hopefully when I get back I can give them one more extra spark to get us over the hump for a couple of wins.”

While being on the sidelines, Mabrey made it her mission to follow through on the very thing she told herself she’d do when she first arrived to Connecticut: become a better leader.

“I think that I had a chance in Chicago to be a leader, and I don’t think that I did it as well as I wanted to,” she admits. “I think when everything happened [in the] offseason and me coming into Connecticut, I said that I would change the way that I led and try to find a better way to do it.”

With Mabrey out, the Sun suffered a five-game losing streak to the top teams in league, including Golden State, Vegas, Seattle and Minnesota before undergoing a complete reset with sage, and a new game plan from Meziane and a fresh perspective on coming together as a team. They also welcomed rookie Leila Lacan, who joined the team on July 2 after competing in Eurobasket with the French National Team.

During that time, Mabrey continued to learn, in real time, how to be the type of leader her team needed from her. On the sidelines, she would often to be talking to teammates from the bench, jumping into huddles during timeouts and reacting to calls and whatever else was happening on the floor.

“Me being out on the sidelines has really helped me to see a lot of things that my team needs,” she said. “Just being there to support them and make them feel like they’re on top of the world every game so that that confidence level is high and we can come closer to winning. I think it’s been the biggest part of me changing as a leader.”