Replacing Brittney Griner isn’t easy.
After 11 years and a title won with the Phoenix Mercury, highlight-reel dunks and blocks, three Olympic gold medals, the 6-foot-9-inch future Hall of Famer left the Valley to sign a one-year deal with the Atlanta Dream on Jan. 28.
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At 6 feet, 7 inches tall and 28 years old, Kalani Brown knows filling the void of Griner’s generational talent is a tall task. Despite not having a personal relationship, Griner reached out to her fellow former Baylor standout Brown to have a soft landing in Phoenix.
“Through Instagram, she said when I first arrived that she was proud of me and she was happy that I was here,” Brown said at the Mercury training camp’s second day on April 28. “She spoke very highly of the (organization).”
Within a week after Griner joined Atlanta, Brown was the biggest among the Mercury’s new wave of frontcourt players. Brown came in addition to the team’s two new stars, Alyssa Thomas and Satou Sabally, in two separate blockbuster multi-team trades.
Brown is the daughter of former NBA center P.J. Brown. She has a career average of 5.9 points and 3.4 rebounds.
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Brown said that coming to Phoenix as part of Sabally’s sign-and-trade package deal from Dallas has helped her transition to playing alongside Alyssa Thomas and Phoenix’s top returnee, Kahleah Copper.
The 11-year veteran and a MVP-caliber Thomas is one of the WNBA’s most physically imposing power forwards at 6 feet, 2 inches. Thomas played alongside All-Star big Brionna Jones on their former team and longtime playoff contender Connecticut Sun for the past eight years.
“I can be a little bit more aggressive in defense just knowing that somebody’s holding the entire team accountable for being in our spots,” Brown said about Thomas. “I know she’s a bulldozer herself, and I know running in transition I could possibly get rewarded, so I like that.”
Sabally is an athletic, two-time All-Star at 6-foot-4, plays the three and four spots, and stretches the floor as an outside shooting threat. Brown played with Sabally the past two seasons on the rebuilding Dallas Wings.
Mercury general manager Nick U’Ren explained at the team’s media day on April 30 that getting Thomas, Sabally and Brown on their roster is the team’s new direction. Not trying to trace Phoenix’s Diana Taurasi and Griner era that ended this offseason, or Connecticut’s success over the past decade.
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“We’re not trying to replicate anything anyone else has done, whether it’s here in the past or whether it’s things that these other players have seen on other teams,” U’Ren said. “We trying to be our own version of the Phoenix Mercury. But certainly, I would say Alyssa and Satou both play some of the most valuable positions in this game and that’s size, strength and skill. They both have those.”
Sabally played with not one but two 6-foot-7 bigs in Dallas, Teaira McCowan and Brown together, which made the Wings one of the league’s tallest teams.
“I love playing with bigs and I think having Kalani on the team will be such an asset,” Sabally said at media day. “She’s very mobile and she can run the floor, but she’s also a good shooter and knows the game. Her IQ is really high and I’ve profited of having big people in the paint because you need to guard them. You need to box them out.
“They will just rebound the ball and I love my little dish-offs to the post inside, too. It creates this form of being able to rely on people, and obviously we had two last year, we were really big in Dallas but I feel like we are really big here, too,” Sabally added.
Kalani Brown takes questions from reporters at Phoenix Mercury Media Day on April 30, 2025, in Phoenix.
Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts assured at media day that Brown and their other veteran big Natasha Mack will be the true fives in their “positionless” offense this season.
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“Her energy and defensively, she’s there,” Mack said. “She makes people alter their shots. We’re a defensive team. We need that, we want that. Offensive-wise, she’s good, too. She’s got her post moves. I love it.”
Tibbetts’ plan is to play more uptempo from causing turnovers, then running in the open floor. They were ranked No. 8 in pace last year, and Dallas was atop that category.
“My role is just to be dominant, rebound, be aggressive, play fast,” Brown said. “He knows I’m more of a finesse type of player and he’s not putting me in a box, which I like, but it’s also challenging.”
Brown described Tibbetts’ fast-paced offense as an “NBA kind of feel.” Tibbetts using an NBA-oriented offense makes sense because he was an assistant coach for the Cleveland Cavaliers, Portland Trail Blazers and Orlando Magic for 12 years before he joined the Mercury in 2023.
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Not having Griner is a major change, but the Mercury’s positionless system could make things more feasible to adjust on the fly.
“I don’t think it’s gonna fall strictly on Kalani,” Tibbetts said. “It’s gonna be Kalani. It’s gonna be AT. It’s gonna be Mack. At times you may see Satou there. I don’t think one person is gonna fill BG’s shoes. She was one-of-one and so we’re gonna have to do it as a group.
“With Kalani, we’ll probably do it with size and power, and then when we shift down we’re gonna do it with speed and quickness and shooting,” Tibbetts added.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Mercury’s Kalani Brown brings size, defense after Griner’s exit
