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The WNBA free agency negotiating period is set to begin on Jan. 21, and the Phoenix Mercury have already made a roster move. In advance of Tuesday’s negotiating period, WNBA teams were able to core players, as the Connecticut Sun did with Alyssa Thomas, as well as extend qualifying offers to reserved and restricted free agents as the Los Angeles Sparks did with Aari McDonald.
With the WNBA free agency period set to begin, the roster move the Mercury made was signing Natasha Mack to a training camp contract. Mack was a reserved free agent, meaning that with less than four years of experience, the Mercury held exclusive negotiating rights in free agent.
Since Mack signed a training camp contract, that means she accepted the qualifying offer the team had tendered. The organization tendered qualifying offers to three other reserved free agents in Celeste Taylor, Mikiah Herbert Harrigan and Amy Atwell. The lone reserved free agent that did not receive a qualifying offer from the Mercury was Charisma Osborne.
On a training camp contract, Mack will have to make the team roster for the 2025 WNBA season. But that’s nothing new to her as she earned her way onto the Mercury roster with a strong 2024 camp and preseason.
Natasha Mack’s impact with Mercury
Early in the 2024 WNBA season, the Mercury were without star center Brittney Griner due to injury. Mack was placed into the starting lineup in Griner’s absence, and played very well.
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Mack, who earned the nickname of ‘clean-up woman,’ from her teammates, became a dependable and consistent role player.
Last season, Mack appeared in all 40 games for the Mercury, including 11 starts, at a little over 15 minutes per game. She averaged 3.8 points, 5.0 rebounds, 1.1 assists and 1.2 blocked shots with splits of 57.3 percent shooting from the field and 57.9 percent shooting from the free-throw line.
It was a long journey back to the WNBA for Mack, who was originally selected by the Chicago Sky with the No. 16 overall pick in the 2021 WNBA Draft. She split her rookie season between the Sky and the Minnesota Lynx before not playing in the league for two years.
Mack had been playing overseas though in the meantime. She played in New Zealand, Poland and Turkey before returning to the WNBA last season.
Mack also played junior college basketball at Angelina College in Texas, before transferring to Oklahoma State University where she played two seasons of Division 1 college basketball.
