Despite facing the Dallas Wings down a starter and with just nine healthy players, the Connecticut Sun suddenly have a luxurious problem for the second half of the WNBA season: They have too much talent.The Sun routed Dallas 109-91 on the road Friday, making a triumphant return from the WNBA’s three-week Olympic break. The team desperately needed a more consistent outside threat to make a championship push in 2024, and it filled that hole with a trade for Chicago Sky standout Marina Mabrey during the break.Mabrey was outstanding in her Connecticut debut, shooting 3-for-5 on 3-pointers, to finish with 17 points plus four rebounds, three assists and two steals. The newcomer stepped into the starting spot usually filled by DiJonai Carrington, who was not with the team for personal reasons, and now the team is facing a lineup dilemma once its breakout defensive star returns for Sunday’s road matchup against the Atlanta Dream (3 p.m., ESPN3).“I feel a little bit like the Celtics this year, because we’ve got six players that can start,” Sun coach Stephanie White joked after the win at Dallas. “It could be determined by the game, it could be determined by matchups, it could be determined by style, so we don’t have a solid answer on that yet. We’re still kicking that around. It’s impactful to have somebody who can come in off the bench and impact your team from an energy standpoint, from a production standpoint.”The whole roster felt Mabrey’s impact on the offense. DeWanna Bonner put up a season-best 29 points and Alyssa Thomas matched her season high in assists with 14. The Sun’s 109 points were also a season high, marking the team’s most productive offensive performance since it scored 110 on the Chicago Sky in June 2018. Connecticut also shot a combined 55% from beyond the arc, a mark it has now hit just three times in the last five years.
Mabrey making her Connecticut Sun debut 🤝
17 PTS // 4 REB // 3 AST // 2 STL pic.twitter.com/ug1hpcfpH0
— Connecticut Sun (@ConnecticutSun) August 17, 2024 “When you add a piece like Marina who can just jump in and fit in, you don’t have to slow down at all, and I think that’s that’s huge,” Bonner said. “We haven’t even practiced together. … This was the first time that we actually really stepped on the court with her, and it’s just impressive that we can all just kind of click and run together and just play basketball. We know how to play basketball at the end of the day, forget the plays because they’ll come later. That’s what we did, and I’m super proud of our team and super proud of her.”It would be a major surprise to see Carrington benched after her start to the season as a frontrunner for the WNBA’s Most Improved Player. The fourth-year guard averaged 12.9 points, 5.2 rebounds and 1.2 steals per game before the Olympic break and established herself as one of the top perimeter defenders in the league on a roster that includes two-time defensive player of the year runner-up Alyssa Thomas. Carrington’s shooting numbers have taken a dip with her increase in minutes, from 37.1% in 2023 to 28.8% from 3-point range this year, but adding Mabrey next to her helps create the offensive dimension that was missing early on.Tyasha Harris, the Sun’s current go-to point guard, had a strong beginning to the season too as a first-time starter, averaging a career-high 11.1 points plus 3.2 assists and a steal. The biggest concern with Harris is some inconsistency: White said she felt like Harris “hit a wall” physically before the Olympic break, and she has struggled to find her 3-point shot averaging 36.6% from outside after hitting a league-leading 46.4% off the bench in 2023.Running the point isn’t necessarily Mabrey’s preferred position, but she is more than capable after stepping into a far bigger role as a facilitator in Chicago this year. She joined the Sun averaging a career-high 4.5 assists, and Connecticut also has one of the most prolific passers in the history of the league in Thomas, so the team has plenty of options to create for Mabrey off-ball even if she slots in at the point guard spot.“She knows how to play,” White said. “She moves really well with and without the ball. She makes the right read and the right plays. She knocks down shots … and she’s versatile, so we can play her at multiple positions. I think she fits really well with our core group just in terms of understanding our actions, being effective in our actions and making the right plays.”Marina Mabrey returns to her roots in trade to Connecticut Sun after challenging start with Chicago SkyHarris performed well against the Wings with 14 points shooting 5-for-8 from the field and 3-for-4 beyond the arc. However, she also had the lowest plus-minus in the starting lineup at plus-9 while Mabrey was a plus-19, and Harris split minutes with Veronica Burton off the bench to provide a different defensive look against Dallas sharpshooter Arike Ogunbowale.White said she expects all three guards to play at a comparable volume moving forward regardless of whose name is in the opening lineup, so both Harris and Carrington will likely see their load reduced from the 30 minutes per game both averaged in the first half of the season.“I feel like we have six starters, and somebody isn’t going to be happy about not starting, but all six of them are going to play starters’ minutes,” White said. “That’s just the hand we’re dealt, and I can tell you I’d rather have that hand than some of the others we’ve been dealt before.”
Originally Published: August 17, 2024 at 5:00 p.m.
