It’s Day 4 of Tempo training camp. Brittney Sykes is set up on the baseline, getting ready to inbound the ball. It’s a scrimmage against practice players, which means there’s time for pauses in play, time for head coach Sandy Brondello to set up an action, move her players around on the floor, walk around the halfcourt to show them exactly where they should cut, screen or set up for a shot or connective pass.
The clock says there’s a bit less than two seconds to go, the Tempo are down two. It’s a game-on-the-line situation — the type that can come to define whether or not the WNBA’s newest franchise can hit the ground running or fall short in Year 1.
Rookie centre Teonni Key comes in on a 45 cut off a screen, gets the bounce pass from Sykes in the post and lifts a push shot over her defender, sinking the bucket and tying up the scrimmage. They let it all out, dap each other up, mob the rookie and remind themselves how far they’ve come in these few days of camp. Then they run it again.
There’s no need for excessive celebration, it’s a drill at the end of the day, and the situation with the game on the line is a simulated one, but the energy at camp is high, and executing simple sets is something they’ll have to do countless times over the next few months. It’s a single brush stroke on a blank canvas — there will be thousands more until it’s ready to be framed at the Art Gallery of Ontario.
The Toronto Tempo have been here at the University of Toronto’s Goldring Centre for the better part of a week, learning sets, their new hometown, and most importantly, each other in the short time they’ve had to do so.
“When you don’t have much time together, especially when you’re new, you gotta get to know (each other)…” Brondello said. “Get to know them on a deeper level, cause I’m a firm believer that the most connected teams off the court are the most connected teams on the court.
“That’s what we’re trying to achieve here. Everyone being vulnerable in that space and opening up, because, you know, we’re in this journey together. Let’s just go and enjoy it.”
It’s been a lightning-quick turnaround, from when the WNBA’s new CBA was signed, to the expansion draft days later, to the entry draft right after. In the span of a month, players have gone from cutting down the nets at March Madness or from a negotiating table with the players’ association or playing overseas, to where they are now in downtown Toronto.
They’re not exactly starting from scratch — these are professionals, athletes who have been around the game or the league for some time — but context plays a big role. And in that case, it’s novel. It’s a process, but even with the sheer number of nationalities on this roster (10 different countries represented on the team), at least they share a universal language.
“Basketball’s basketball. I’ve had so much experience, some of my players have so much experience, so we lean into that experience and we take care of each day. … Let’s win the day, because that’s all we can control right now. And if we just stack good days — winning days — together, it propels us forward,” Brondello said, explaining the philosophy she’s taken on in what’s also a novel experience for her. “We’re gonna keep learning — we are a new team, an expansion team, and it will take time… It may look ugly at times, but that gives us film to go back and teach.”
Executing an action properly is important — players finding their spots on the floor, post players setting authoritative screens, passers making the right reads, and shots finding the bottom of the basket. As pre-season action doesn’t tip off until the 29th, now is the time to celebrate those little wins when they come along, “winning the day,” as coach puts it. The Tempo, from the veterans to the rookies, and from the leaders to the learners, are stacking them up and taking their first steps as they get ready for a marathon.
More than a million-dollar backcourt
While with the Washington Mystics over parts of the last three seasons, though Sykes established herself as an all-star and an all-defensive first-team selection, a different challenge came across her plate, one that would come to define the next step in her career: fix your attitude.
Sitting with the coaching staff at the end of the season, she was told that the way she acts in the locker room or on the floor with teammates will be what makes or breaks her career. That her tendency to yell or talk at players rather than talk with them could be what hinders her moving forward, even if the basketball is as impressive as ever.
“There was times where I would yell. There was times where I would talk crazy, you know, and that’s what it was. It was passion, it was emotion. It was all the things. And my teammates didn’t know how to respond to that. They didn’t know me. They didn’t know that that’s where I was coming from,” Sykes explained to Sportsnet after Friday’s practice.
“And then that’s when I realized there was such a disconnect between being a teammate and, like, being a coworker. And I was coming at them like they were my coworkers instead of being my teammates… It was like, ‘God damn it, do your s—. Yeah, get your job done.’ And they’d be like, ‘Damn, like… Aren’t we having fun? Aren’t we playing a game?’ Yeah, and I’m just like, ‘F— fun. I’m here to win. I’m here to f—– try.’”
From that point on, “Slim,” as her teammates affectionately call her, has worked hard on changing her tune, on becoming a leader. But that desire to win hasn’t gone anywhere, only her approach is different.
During a closed-door scrimmage with the practice players, she explained that she got mad at the group of guys, that she let them have it a bit, but spoke to them after to clear the air and create space for an open dialogue. She mentioned that she always wants to give room for conversation, feedback and empathy, to ask people how she made them feel or how she could’ve said certain things better.
That style of leadership hasn’t been lost on the rest of the group, as a common refrain during the first week of camp was just how important it’s been to have Slim lead the way, to communicate and be the glue that a group of fresh faces in the locker room needs.
“Slim’s been super helpful. She’s obviously a great guard. All the guards they brought in are great… Slim specifically has been super helpful, learning from her, what she likes, what she needs from me, what she wants from me, if she’s doing this, I should do that. Things like that,” Key said about her vet. “She’s been so communicative and I’ve been really receptive and just trying to soak everything up and just be as helpful as possible.”
Joining her in the Tempo’s inaugural backcourt is Marina Mabrey. Both players signed lucrative million-dollar deals, making them the first backcourt in the WNBA to both be in the seven-figure salary mark. But past just their nearly matching salaries is a shared willingness to be vocal — coach Brondello called them “natural leaders” — and some shared roots as New Jerseyans, a characteristic they think will come to define the team’s mentality going forward.
“It’s just the grit, you know? Jersey. Like, we’re right next to New York, but it’s two totally different styles of basketball,” Sykes said. “I feel like with New Jersey people, we don’t really go looking for anything. We finish it. I do that. Like, we don’t really start anything, but once we see something getting started, oh, we’re in it. We’re ready. I’m trying to throw ‘bows. Like (Marina) said, we’re not no punks.”
First impressions of Toronto
Canada’s Wonderland may not open until the first week of May, but living in Toronto this past week has been a roller-coaster unto itself. Here’s a look at the weather in the city since the Tempo began their training camp:
Sunday – high of 7 C, low of minus-1; Monday – high of 5, low of minus-2; Tuesday – high of 11, low of 4; Wednesday – high of 18, low of 4; Thursday – high of 18, low of 6; Friday – high of 11, low of 6.
It’s that time of year when players head to practice in a puffer and leave in shorts, but they’re starting to get a feel for it.
“I have enjoyed the city a lot. My favourite city before coming here was Chicago. I love Chicago, especially in the summertime, and a lot of people have said this is similar in the summertime,” Aaliyah Nye said. “I just enjoy walking around, being around people. The weather is a bit bipolar, but I’m kind of used to the cold a little bit. I have my trench coat, that’s all I need right now.”
Nye, who is playing in only her second season after being drafted by and winning a title with the Las Vegas Aces last year, was a bit more ready than others, hailing from Michigan.
On the other end of the spectrum, you can find rookie big Teonni Key, who, before joining the Tempo, had never left the U.S. and had to dig through her room to find her stamp-less passport before hopping on a flight to Toronto. Despite the horrors of going through customs and immigration for the first time, the experience as a whole has been a fun change of scenery for the North Carolina native.
“The amount of people walking — I’ve never been really in the city like that. So I think it’s been insane,” Key said. “There’s a lot of people on bikes, you know, you gotta watch out for the people on bikes. I think that’s the biggest thing. Being able to walk places I think is super fun, like just going to the grocery store and stuff like that, it’s all pretty close. I think that’s been the best part. The city’s so lively, I love it. It’s definitely something I’m gonna get used to.”
Past just exploring their new neighbourhoods, the players have taken part in plenty of off-the-court activities as a group — attending a Sceptres game on Tuesday, hitting the Raptors’ playoff game on Thursday, and even checking out Toronto’s newest pop-up art installation (if you want to call it that!), Drake’s ice “sculpture.”
Nye, who said she loves Drake, made it her mission to take a pic with it before Toronto firefighters got to work hosing it down earlier in the week.
Community has been a key tenet of this team since its inception, from president Teresa Resch calling it Canada’s team during the press conference announcing the franchise, to Brondello saying it’s a “responsibility” that the team immerses itself in the fabric of the city it represents. They’re only getting started.