Perseverance pays off for 1st-time all-star Mabrey 8 years into WNBA career

Marina Mabrey has made longevity the calling card of her WNBA career and it has finally paid off with an all-star game appearance.

Mabrey had 11 points, six rebounds and four assists in the Toronto Tempo's 83-75 loss to the Golden State Valkyries on Wednesday, a day after she was named an all-star reserve. The 29-year-old guard said that it had been a goal of hers to reach the all-star game since she was a teenager.

"When I was in high school I was like, 'I want to be in the WNBA and I want to be a WNBA all-star.' I had no idea how hard it was, but it's OK, it was cute," said Mabrey before the game. "This league is so hard, and it's every other day, every day you're playing, you're practising, they're challenging you, they're holding you accountable, you're moving teams, you've got different teammates, you have to figure out how to work with people, and so on and so on.

"I just think that it's easy to lose that vision and that belief in yourself, but I don't think I ever lost it."

Her perseverance had certainly been tested over her career.

The six-foot-one shooting guard was taken in the second round of the 2019 WNBA draft, 19th overall, by the Los Angeles Sparks. After a season in L.A., she played for the Dallas Wings, Chicago Sky and Connecticut Sun before getting taken sixth overall by Toronto in the expansion draft.

Marina Mabrey selected as Toronto Tempo's first WNBA all-star

Mabrey was averaging 21.1 points, 3.7 assists, 3.6 rebounds and 1.1 steals per game heading into Wednesday's game. That's a career-high in points and above her career average in the other three categories.

In Mabrey's own words, as the 19th overall pick in her draft class she wasn't supposed to still be in the WNBA at this point of her career,