The WNBA season is a mere three days away, and we’re almost at the end of the line on the Post Presence preview tour. Up next, my first trip to Canada for a look at the expansion Toronto Tempo. I hope no one there gets too mad at me when I tell them that poutine is nachos.
What’s a Toronto Tempo?
As a 41-year old kid — for exactly one more day! — who still loves dinosaurs, I truly wish that Canada’s Team was named the Toronto T-Rex. If anyone’s feathers were ruffled by the WNBA team being the T-Rex and the city’s MNBA team being the Raptors, all the better in my opinion. Alas, the Tempo are presumably thusly named because it’s a basketball term, referring to a team’s rate of possessions per 40 minutes and used interchangeably with “pace.” It’s such a bland name that, when it leaked via a dropdown menu last year, many people let themselves believe that “tempo” was actually short for “temporary” and the real name was yet to come. The franchise isn’t owned by Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE), which owns the Raptors, but Tempo majority owner Larry Tanenbaum owns a 20% stake in MLSE. Other members of the ownership group include Serena Williams, Lilly Singh and former NBA championship-winning Raptors executive Masai Ujiri (now with the Dallas Mavericks). The Tempo will also have a two-time WNBA champion and the owner of probably the best collection of jackets in North America as head coach in Sandy Brondello, who most recently coached the New York Liberty.
What’s the roster going to look like?
The Tempo seemed to approach building their inaugural roster pretty similarly to how Golden State did it last year, which makes sense given the Valkyries were the runaway best expansion team in WNBA history. Like Golden State, Toronto leaned towards veterans, both of the WNBA and overseas variety, in assembling its team, headlined by the WNBA’s first pairing of guards with salaries in the seven figures in Brittney Sykes and Marina Mabrey. They were later joined by duos from Atlanta, Las Vegas and Minnesota, but NOT Los Angeles since Kelsey Plum signed for a dollar less than a million. Toronto did, however, get its two million-dollar guards signed first, and I thought it was a cute boast when they put it out there, so I’ll probably always think of Mabrey and Sykes that way now. Mabrey spent last year and part of 2024 with the Connecticut Sun, and is coming off of a very productive winter season in Unrivaled which included an instantly iconic 47-point explosion in Philly. Sykes was traded at last year’s deadline, presumably because the Washington Mystics simply couldn’t bear having a then-31-year old on the roster. Slim made her first All-Star alongside then-Mystics rookie teammates Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen, but never got back into a groove after being traded to the Seattle Storm. Both are signed for next season as well, two of only three players Toronto signed for multiple years (they also have a handful of rookie contracts extending to 2027 and beyond). Thirty-year old Belgian guard Julie Allemand, who played with the Sparks last season after skipping the 2023 and 2024 WNBA campaigns, is also signed for two years.
While those are the only vets signed for next season, Mabrey and Sykes aren’t the only seven-figure Tempo players, as veteran center Temi Fágbénlé also signed for a million on the nose — take that, Kelsey Plum! Temi, who I am on a first-name basis with because look at all those special characters in her last name, endeared herself to the Ballhalla faithful while appearing in 38 games, averaging 7.4 points and 4.9 rebounds and making 50.2% from the field for the last WNBA expansion team. Once again, it makes sense to just copy the Valkyries here. The Tempo also brought in a couple of other frontcourt players who Brondello is quite familiar with from her time with Liberty. First, there’s Nyara Sabally, who starred off the bench in the title-clinching Game 5 against Minnesota in 2024, and also Isabelle Harrison, who joined New York last season.
That accounts for all the veterans scheduled to make more than minimum salaries (although Harrison’s contract isn’t guaranteed like the others). First-round pick Kiki Rice and expansion draft pick Aaliyah Nye, who won a title with the Aces as a rookie, also seem like roster locks, which would bring us to eight. Eight-year veteran Kia Nurse started in the second preseason game and was with Brondello for her final year in Phoenix, so I’d bet she’s on the team as well. That would leave three full-time roster spots for the final six players in camp, with two players who spent last season with the Phoenix Mercury (Lexi Held and Kitija Laksa) and rookie second-round pick Teonni Key the most recognizable names among them. If you read my work last summer in the Her Hoop Stats newsletter, you know I have a soft spot for Held, and I am rooting for her.
What’s the Marvel Snap deck?
Given the Tempo have only played a couple of preseason games, it felt nearly impossible to spiritually connect them to a Snap deck. So, instead of making a deck based on how the Tempo will play, or who they are at their core, I tried to simulate their experience with a deck-building challenge. What I made for the Tempo, and also tomorrow for the Portland Fire, is a deck exclusively using cards in the game’s first three “series” out of five, all of which are eventually awarded to new players simply by playing the game, while series 4 and 5 cards require either grinding for in-game currency or buying it with real money. It is, suffice to say, a very limited and somewhat outdated pool compared to what someone who’s been playing the game for years has at their disposal. What is an expansion team if not a player with a low collection level? I don’t think this deck can really compete with what dedicated players (like me) are doing in 2026, but I think I could probably eke out some wins with it.
I kinda miss the days when this would’ve been a totally playable deck
What’s the expectation?
The Valkyries set a very high bar for future expansion teams, and while the Tempo replicated some of their moves in spirit, I don’t think they can come close to replicating Golden State’s run to the playoffs. I do, however, think Toronto should be competitive on most nights, and that is a much fairer standard for an expansion team. I’m inclined to think that putting a watchable product on the floor and keeping fan interest high is probably the right path in the expansion draft, given that teams generally protect young players who are part of their future plans, so I have no real qualms with what the Tempo have put together. I just expect they’ll end up closer to the bottom of the league than .500.