After making the trade to bring Aneesah Morrow to the Toronto Tempo from the Connecticut Sun on Friday, she made her on-court debut on Tuesday against the Golden State Valkyries.
While the Tempo are definitely hoping Morrow adds some zest to their current roster, the move also solidifies their future as well.
“This was not a move for the short term,” Tempo general manager Monica Wright Rogers said in a press conference Tuesday. “We envision Aneesah to be a part of our core as we work towards sustained contention.”
The second-year player out of LSU is known for her hustle and rebounding ability and has potential to become a three-level scoring threat. In the immediate term, she could help solve the rebounding problem the Tempo find themselves in.
In the long term, she is under contract for next season, and the Tempo have the option to pick up her contract for the 2028 campaign. She’s a player they can build around for years to come.
“I’m honestly grateful to be here,” Morrow said before her first game as a Tempo. “I’m here to rebound. That’s just what I do, and that’s what I pride my game on. Just being that force on the boards, offensively and defensively.”
The Tempo are 13th league-wide in team rebounds per game, which goes back to both the injuries that have affected their frontcourt players and also just generally being an undersized team. Despite the trade deadline being generally low-key league-wide, the Tempo were one of the few teams that decided to make a move.
“It was clear to us that we needed certain things, and there’s only a handful of players that embodied those things,” Wright Rogers said of the timing of the trade. “I don’t think Aneesah would have been available if we would have waited any longer. I think we took the opportunity at the right time, and I think this is the absolutely right piece to add to our board this time.”
Morrow arrived in San Francisco to join the team on Sunday, but did not play in Sunday’s game against the Valkyries. At the time, Brondello expressed wanting to make sure she got at least a practice in before throwing Morrow into game action.
The benefit of the timing of the schedule ended up being that the Tempo stayed in the Bay Area for a second game against the Valkyries, giving Morrow a full practice day.
From there, she was made available for Tuesday’s game and came off the bench. She played 16 minutes, scored 8 points and had five rebounds, and the Tempo lost 92-81 to Golden State. With more adjustment time, she very well could end up in the starting lineup soon.
“She hasn’t been with us, so there are a few times she probably wasn’t quite sure what she was supposed to be doing,” head coach Sandy Brondello said of Morrow’s debut. “She’s going to be a presence here, and I think the more comfortable she gets, she will get better and better. I like the minutes that she gave us, and we’ll continue to build on them.”
The loss against Golden State on Tuesday was Toronto’s seventh consecutive loss, as they now sit at 10-20 on the season. They head to Portland next to continue their west coast road trip against the Fire, who have lost five games in a row themselves. One of these expansion teams will break their streak in the game, and Portland has the edge of having won their first matchup between the teams.
The silver lining is that the Tempo’s injury woes may be improving. In Tuesday’s game, Brittney Sykes was the only player on Toronto’s injury report as she continues to recover from a foot injury.
In the past week, the Tempo have welcomed back Kiki Rice, Nyara Sabally, and Isabelle Harrison from various injuries, and while Marina Mabrey missed Sunday’s game, she played Tuesday.
Sykes is expected to make a return to the Tempo lineup before the end of the regular season, and it’s still to be seen if Toronto will have a single game in their inaugural year with a clean injury report.
