Toronto Tempo's Struggles and Kiki Rice's Rise as Franchise Player
Toronto’s bruising debut season hasn’t really been a season at all. It’s been a triage report.
Isabelle Harrison never got out of the blocks. Nyara Sabally and Temi Fagbenle have bounced in and out of the lineup. Aneesah Morrow arrived at the trade deadline, managed seven games, and was gone again with a season-ending injury. Brittney Sykes has only appeared 17 times. Kiki Rice lost almost all of June and July to an ankle sprain.
No expansion team in the league has taken more hits. At some point, the injuries stopped being a subplot and became the story.
Instead of pushing for a fairytale playoff run in year one, the Toronto Tempo now sit in a very different race: positioning for the number-one pick in the 2027 WNBA Draft. With names like JuJu Watkins, Madison Booker, and Hannah Hidalgo looming on the horizon, that’s not exactly a doomsday scenario.
But it hasn’t made the last two months any easier to live through.
A long summer, two bright nights
Toronto have just two wins to show for July and August. One was a genuine shocker over the New York Liberty. The other, an 82–79 grind against the Portland Fire that finally snapped a 12-game losing streak.
Those are the nights that keep a locker room together. The rest have been hard going: lineups patched together, rotations shredded, and a fan base watching the inaugural season turn into a test of patience.
Out of that chaos, one thing has started to look very real.
Kiki Rice
A point guard takes the wheel
Since returning from her ankle injury about a month ago, Rice has been the steady pulse in a season that hasn’t had many. Her August numbers are not the kind you usually associate with a rookie guard feeling her way through a battered expansion roster.
She’s averaging 14 points on 50% shooting from the field, hitting 37.5% from three, adding 2.6 rebounds and 3.7 assists. She’s doing it while taking care of the ball, turning it over just 1.2 times per game.
The production is one thing. The consistency is another.
Rice has scored at least 10 points in seven straight games. In six of those, she’s handed out at least four assists. She hasn’t had more than two turnovers in any of them. For a young guard on a team constantly reshuffling around her, that’s the kind of profile that makes coaches exhale.
About a week ago, after a nine-point loss to the Washington Mystics, Sandy Brondello used the phrase that changes expectations around a player: franchise player.
Rice is starting to look exactly like that.
Career night, statement performance
Her most emphatic performance came in a loss.
Against the Seattle Storm, with Sykes and Marina Mabrey both sidelined, Rice was asked to do everything. She ran the offense. She took the Flau’jae Johnson assignment on defense. And she still walked off the floor as the game’s leading scorer.
Career-high 24 points. An even 50% from the field. A perfect 11-for-11 at the free-throw line. Three rebounds, five assists, one steal. No hiding, no deferring.
The efficiency inside the arc stood out just as much as the volume. Rice went 5-for-9 on two-pointers against a front line patrolled by Dominique Malonga, Awa Fam, and Ezi Magbegor. That’s a wall of length and rim protection, and she kept getting to her spots anyway.
On a contending team, that sort of night becomes a signature win. On this Tempo team, it becomes something slightly different but just as important: proof.
Proof that when Toronto finally get healthy, they already have a guard who can carry an offense, handle responsibility at both ends, and live at the line when games tighten up.
Losing now, building next
Rice’s surge is unlikely to drag the Tempo out of the lottery. Given the state of the roster and the value of that 2027 pick, it probably shouldn’t.
But the losses no longer feel empty.
Toronto can look ahead and see Sykes back, Mabrey spacing the floor, Rice orchestrating, and a lottery-level talent walking through the door next summer. That’s a legitimate core for a second-year franchise, not just a wish list.
This season has been brutal. It has also been revealing. The injuries stripped everything back and left one clear takeaway:
The Tempo already have their point guard of the future. Now the question is how quickly the rest of the roster, and the standings, catch up to her.
