Marina Mabrey leads the WNBA in threes made per game, and DraftKings only has her at +275 to win tonight’s 3-Point Contest at Wintrust Arena, ahead of a field that includes rookie Azzi Fudd and four-time All-Star Rhyne Howard. That’s the entire story of tonight in one line: the league’s best volume shooter, priced as a short favorite, in a field that’s actually loaded. Tip is 8pm ET, the All-Star Game itself doesn’t happen until tomorrow at 8:30 on ABC, and if you think the game is the appointment viewing, you’ve got the order backwards.
Mabrey is putting up 3.3 makes a night on 39.2% shooting, 82 makes total, first All-Star selection of her career. She’s doing it in a bordeaux Toronto Tempo jersey this year, after the expansion draft shipped her north from Connecticut.
Fresh colors, same right hand.
Earlier this season she went 9-of-18 from deep for 53 points against the Sparks, tying the WNBA single-game scoring record. Go watch that highlight package before you place anything on this contest.
The six-woman field around her is the actual story, though. Fudd, the No. 1 pick in this year’s draft, is shooting 38.8% on over five attempts a game as a rookie for Dallas, and DraftKings has her right behind Mabrey at +320.
Janelle Salaün and Bridget Carleton sit at +450 apiece. Howard, who plays for the Atlanta Dream and leads the league in three-point attempts per game for the second year running, is +500. Natisha Hiedeman closes it out at +800.
This stopped being a novelty event with a cute trophy the moment six different names got priced out this precisely. It’s a line you can bet on with your rent money if you’re built the way I am, and full disclosure, I’ve done exactly that, more than once, for smaller reasons than this.
ESPN’s Alexa Philippou dropped the full field:
https://twitter.com/alexaphilippou/status/2079658746733596990
Caitlin Clark, Sabrina Ionescu, and Kayla McBride all got invited and passed.
Their loss. This is the fun one.
I’ll cop to a wrinkle here before I go all in on Mabrey: DraftKings is the only book making her the favorite. Covers and Yahoo have Fudd at +280 to Mabrey’s +310, and bet365 likes Fudd even more, +250 to +325. So this isn’t Vegas unanimously anointing the queen of volume shooting.
It’s one book, and a rookie who might be the better racks shooter than she is a game shooter. Different skill, different rhythm, no defenders in her face.
Doesn’t change my money. Mabrey’s swagger during a make is its own line of offense, and a contest built around getting hot fast rewards exactly that.
Go read the rest of our WNBA coverage after the last rack drops. Or don’t. Just watch the contest.
