It all brought Dara Mabrey back to the driveway days.
The 26-year-old was deep in a practice at Toronto Tempo training camp with older sister Marina this spring, and she was defending her as doggedly as she might’ve growing up back home in Belmar, N.J., as the shot clock wound down in a scrimmage.
It didn’t matter. Marina drained a three-pointer. Head coach Sandy Brondello’s eyes lit up.
A star — now the expansion Tempo’s first all-star — was born.
“I didn’t even care. I was so happy to see her out there and see everybody so excited. When she would go out there and do her thing, like shoot a behind-the-back stepback three from half court, everybody’s eyes would light up and it was just [an] energy boost in the gym. Like there she is, that’s what you guys signed for this year,” Dara recalled.
A very mature reaction. Might it have been different back in the driveway?
“I felt like I made her take maybe a little bit more of a difficult shot than I did when we were younger,” Dara said. “She’s gonna be pissed reading that in the article.”
Marina, 29, will compete in her first all-star game on Saturday in Chicago, where the defence may not be quite as intense. She’ll also participate in the three-point shooting contest on Friday.
Staying together in the same home for the weekend is the entire Mabrey clan, including dad Roy, mom Patti, brothers Roy, 34, and Ryan, 23, and sisters Michaela, 32, and Dara, 26.
While both parents were competitive triathletes, all five siblings are involved in basketball — Dara was in training camp with the Tempo before being cut prior to opening day, Michaela just ended a stint as an assistant coach at Notre Dame (where all three sisters also played), Roy is a player-development coach and Ryan plays at the University of Miami (Ohio).
As one might imagine in a family of seven athletes, things often got competitive on the driveway. Dara said she might not have taken Marina drilling a shot over her quite as well as she did in training camp.
“She did talk trash to me after, but it’s a different feeling because we both literally prayed for that opportunity,” Dara said.
The driveway battles, typically contested in round-robin format, are less frequent these days, with the siblings all facing chaotic basketball schedules. Back in the day, Patti would act as referee, but not one particularly prone to blowing the whistle much. It led to screaming and crying, per Dara, but Patti would always make sure the aggrieved party would return to the concrete and finish off the game.
“The driveway’s real old school. Street-ball vibes. Foul the crap out of each other and you just gotta push through it. So it was really competitive but it was so fun,” Dara said.
One tradition that remains is Christmas morning, where Marina, who played soccer and ran cross-country before settling on basketball, is the reigning champion.
“But I don’t know, Christmas 2027 might look different. I get better every year against her,” Dara said.
Added Marina: “I take their heart every single Christmas. I feel so bad sometimes.”
It’s in those battles that an all-star was moulded. The Mabreys learned their work ethic from their parents, who ensured that school and basketball came before all else and made sure to facilitate that success.
‘I want to be great for my family’
The Mabrey kids once tried adding up how many rebounds Patti and Roy pulled down in their parenting career by adding all their years of basketball together. An “absurd amount” was their best guess.
“[Roy] would always tell me, if you want to be one of the best in this league, you got to outwork people,” Marina said. “So just like telling me to find pockets of time to put work in, get a competitive advantage. And then my mom, just so steady. She was just like, just keep going, get back up, do it again. If you fail, try again, try again, try again. Never give up.”
Marina played for four different teams throughout her seven-year WNBA career before landing in Toronto via the April expansion draft with the idea that she could be the team’s first star. All she needed throughout her previous four-team journey through the league, the theory went, was opportunity.
Even before knowing where she would play this season, the 29-year-old said she tackled the off-season differently, working out less but focusing on explosiveness and footwork so that she could get off her shot whenever she wanted, and from wherever she wanted.
Dara worked out with her every day after training camp. She said she always knew Marina had all-star in her.
“I like to tell her I’m impressed, but not surprised, just because I see the amount of hours and time that she pours into her craft and she is the most deserving of this accolade. I mean it’s like every single day she’s so intentional about what she does. She invests in herself and that’s obviously a really big part of the game, but the way that she does it is just super special,” Dara said.
Toronto beats Los Angeles 125-97. Marina Mabrey finishes with 53 points, tying the WNBA record for most points in a single game. Her nine three-pointers also ties a WNBA record.
Perhaps the most special moment of Marina’s breakout season came in late June against the Los Angeles Sparks, when she tied the WNBA single-game record with 53 points — all with Michaela sitting courtside.
It was no surprise that Marina made sure to embrace Michaela after the game ended.
“Mikey was my first competition,” Marina said. “I thought about beating her one-on-one every single day. And she just made me better. Like, she makes me a better player, she makes me a better person, she’s the first person to hold me accountable.
“She’s not texting me, like ‘You’re the best, you’re amazing.’ She’s challenging me to be better every single time. So just seeing her on the side, I just want to be great for my family.”
Dara said she watched from a hotel room in Spokane, Wash., while at a three-on-three tournament. Her screaming prompted someone else participating at the competition to ask what was going on.
“I was like, dude, I’m never one to brag but I can’t help it, I just watched my sister score 53 points. 53. I did cry during it, I was like this is a surreal moment, like oh my goodness, she just kept going and going and the basket was just so big,” Dara said.
Around six months earlier, Marina reached similar shooting heights, pouring in 47 points during an Unrivaled game in Philadelphia.
The outburst prompted a typical Mabrey response from older-brother Roy on TikTok.
“For those who don’t know, I’m Roy Mabrey,” a video began, “and I’m the best basketball player in the family, bar none. You can ask them. None of them have beat me in one-on-one. None of them hold a candle to me. I shoot better than them, I handle the ball better than them. I pass better than them. I’m a better defender than all of them — and I’m not even a good defender to start with.”
Marina said she wouldn’t be the all-star she is today without that “tough love.”
“It drives all my competitiveness. It drives my will to win and just my ability to always stay and be myself. Because I have a close relationship with my siblings, we all accept each other and we also challenge each other to be the best version. Just knowing I have that support and knowing I gotta keep my bragging rights,” she said.
And when it gets chippy — and it often does with Marina — on the court?
“We always laugh, like, what’d she say to you in the game? Like nothing you haven’t said to me, don’t even worry about it.”
A franchise player
With the Tempo, Mabrey has taken on more of a leadership role.
As the team’s lone all-star, on the books through next season on a maximum $1.2-million US annual contract, Mabrey understands the responsibility she holds within the franchise.
Her 21 points per game easily eclipses her previous career-high of 15. Her field-goal percentage hasn’t suffered despite an increased workload, sitting at 44 per cent — what would be her second-highest mark ever. She’s had five 30-point games, with the Tempo going 4-1 in those contests.
“I’m excited to be a big piece of the franchise and someone that maybe can set the tone from a leadership perspective and the scoring perspective from things that I bring to the table, but also understanding that championship teams, they’re very unselfish, they’re very sacrificing, egos aren’t always there.
“So making sure that if I’m gonna be one of the leaders of this franchise that I kind of instill that in my teammates and it starts with me being unselfish too,” she said.
It hasn’t exactly been the kind of season the Tempo envisioned as they sit four games out of a playoff spot at 10-16 at the break.
But the franchise’s big bet on Mabrey seems to have been a winner.
“Every single rep, everything that she does has poured into this moment,” Dara said. “She is the hardest worker I know. She works harder than anybody else and she is more than deserving of being an all-star and I think that she lives up to everything that anybody would define an all-star.”
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