Chicago Sky Season in Review: Marina Mabrey
Taking a look at Marina Mabrey’s debut season in Chicago including her scoring ability, defensive potential and much more.
Starting today and continuing through December 18th, I’ll have a weekly post reviewing one member of the Sky’s 2023 season each Monday. Each post focuses on three positives from the player’s season and one thing I’d like to see more of from them next year. Think of it like a (highly positive) end of season report card.
No player ever asks to be a franchise’s marquee offseason acquisition, and the pressure that comes with it can create problems. When you’re a player jumping from being a contributor to a primary source of offense AND theoretically sliding into a void left by Candance Parker and Courtney Vandersloot, it would be understandable if the pressure caused cracks to emerge both on and off the court. The first word of praise I could give is that, almost without fail, I can’t remember the pressure getting to Marina Mabrey at any point this season. Behind the scenes, I’m sure there was moments where the change in role and high expectations created a great deal of pressure, but, externally, she carried herself through that very well and didn’t let it affect her on court play. To me, that maturation and adaptability suggests that the runway for Mabrey to continue improving her game and escalating through the tiers of WNBA players is still very long. Mabrey has already cleared the first objective post trade — getting the Sky to the playoffs in year 1 to avoid handing over a lottery pick. Another playoff berth in 2025 and suddenly the trade doesn’t look too bad for even the harshest critics. With that said, let’s dive into the positives that made Mabrey’s 2023 a successful debut:
1. Scoring Bag
You’re always more likely to pick up on a player’s unique skillset when you’re watching them play every night, and that was definitely true with Mabrey in Chicago this season. I was familiar with her ability to score the ball — she’s averaged double-digits for three straight years — but the way she creates offense with the ball in her hands took me a little bit by surprise. She’s definitely a player fueled by confidence — more on that later — and she pulls more and more moves out of her bag if the shots are falling early. But the sheer quantity of moves and skills in that bag is probably what surprised me most.
The ability to create space and get shots off — especially with her dribbling and footwork — is something I feel you can’t totally teach. There’s plenty out there who can learn a new move and master it with repetition, but there’s something about a player like Steph Curry that’s just natural and allows him to adapt and create shots in so many different ways. I’m not sure she justifies a comp to the greatest player to shoot a basketball just yet, but the skills Marina showcased this year suggest she’s not far off being one of the best shot creators in the game already.
Another year of playing in Chicago — a franchise that, at least for now, has committed to her as one of its centerpieces — should open the door for her to (1) feel settled in her environment and (2) continue to build confidence in this new higher-profile role. As those things continue to happen, I would expect to see Mabrey more willing to dig into her bag of tricks on shorter notice and deliver key baskets for the Sky. A couple of games this season — in particular her 36 point outburst against Indiana in June — showcased a player who could single handedly take over a game and put the opponent to the sword. The objective for the Sky isn’t for Mabrey to have to do that all the time, but it would be a great asset if she can deliver a handful of games like that each season. If this season showed one thing, it’s that the skills and the confidence to deliver these types of nights are both already there.
2. Defensive Potential
When Mabrey is locked in, she’s a freakishly good two way player. Emre talked a lot about the stats outside the box score like deflections, and Mabrey — while hardly leading the team in those areas — seems to have a knack for making those decisive defensive plays when she’s at her best. The variation in defensive play, it felt like, often came from the offensive performances at the opposite end. When the shots were falling, the defense would get sharper and sharper. She’d make a big shot, create a takeaway and then hit another shot in transition to cap a quick 6–0 run.
Unfortunately, the opposite was also sometimes true — which I think was a problem the whole team experienced to a certain degree at times. A lot of players talked in post-game media about moving on from bad plays, and the team definitely had a problem doing that earlier on in the season. However, I felt this was an area everyone improved upon in the stretch that saw the Sky clinch the #8 seed. The defensive performances became more consistent and less reactive to good or bad offensive showings, and I feel Mabrey was probably the player who most contributed to that change in direction. This probably stems in part from changes in the way she approached adversity (missed shots, phantom foul calls, etc.) as the season went on. Mabrey is, without a doubt, a passionate player, but you could see the conscious effort to spend less time focusing on the negatives (in particular the refereeing decisions) later in the year. You can never draw straight lines between attitude and performance, but I think her effort to let things go helped lead to more balanced play.
As compartmentalization goes, that’s pretty impressive. If it’s in your nature to argue calls with the referees (and for what it’s worth I think a lot of her arguments were very justified), it’s not usually something you can just turn off. You can plan to, but it usually goes awry when the competitor comes out in the heat of the moment. If she can channel that same mental strength towards dissociating her offensive and defensive performance, I see no reason why her defensive consistency wouldn’t see a continued uptick. In 2023, she showcased a combination of size, instincts and aggression on the defensive side which make her a real threat to opposing guards. Because of her offensive skillset, opponents know that she could drop 30 any given night. If she’s suddenly consistently displaying those defensive traits, coaches have to worry about her even on her off nights shooting the ball. That’s a problem for the league and a huge asset for the Sky’s new coach.
3. Post Work
The sample size this season was small, but I think there’s something for the Sky’s next coach to unlock with Marina taking opposing guards into the post. Physically, she’s a strong enough player to maintain position once she gets it against most of the guards in the W. When someone feeds the ball into her, it then really opens up the offense from that point forward. Her obvious option is just to back smaller guards down, but she also has the skillset (see #1) to go into different types of fadeaways, scoop shots, or floaters around the bucket to score. The final option of course is to pass it back out which becomes even more dangerous if she can overpower the player she’s posting up and draw a help defender.
Interestingly, Marina highlighted her physical game as an area she’s trying to improve upon ahead of next season. We can presume that any increase to strength or stamina would just allow her to do more work in the post. I’m not saying this is going to be a major source of offense, and it shouldn’t be. But I think there’s an avenue here to draw up a specific set of plays that make use of everything she can do with the ball on the block — especially with a strong stretch big like Alanna Smith in the line-up.
What I’m Looking for From Mabrey Next Season:
The most often ‘criticism’ of Mabrey’s play that I would give this season was that, at times, I felt she was too reluctant to shoot the ball. It’s always a delicate balance between too many and too few, but there was a definite stretch in the middle of the season (I believe she even spoke to it) where she was too hesitant. No one ever wants to be the player that shoots their team out of the game, but I think a good step for Mabrey’s development as a truly elite scorer would be having the willingness to risk doing just that. It sounds counterintuitive, but she’s the type of shooter who is never far away from her next hot streak. The more she keeps faith in herself and continues to shoot the basketball even when they’re not going in, the more shots I anticipate her making overall.
Ultimately, to tie back to the comments that started this post, Mabrey has been brought in to fill some really big shoes. I’m of the belief (and I tend to think her teammates feel the same) that she has the ability to lead this team (alongside Kah) deep into the playoffs. If she decides to start firing everything that’s a good look next season, I think her productivity will increase, her hot stretches will last longer and the team will benefit from that exponentially. And that claim isn’t without supporting evidence. Over the eight game stretch that secured the Sky’s playoff spot, Mabrey was clearly letting the shots fly with ease and it led to a 46% clip on almost eight attempts from three per game over that stretch.
