Natasha Mack enjoys ‘clean-up woman’ role for Mercury [Exclusive]

Every WNBA team needs a player who doesn't necessarily need the ball in their hands or to score to impact a game. A player who is willing to do the dirty work and whose impact won't always show up on the stat sheet. For the Phoenix Mercury , that player has been Natasha Mack.

As part of the second unit, Mack has helped bring a gritty toughness to the Mercury bench . She made the team out of training camp and was slotted into immediate action following an early injury to Brittney Griner.

When Griner returned to the lineup, Mack reprised her role off the bench as a hard-nosed rebounder, tough defender and expert screen setter. She's unique in that sense that nobody else on the roster really brings what she does to the court.

"My teammates appreciate that. It might not show up on the stat sheet or anything, but everybody appreciates it," Mack told ClutchPoints in an exclusive interview. "It might help us get another possession, those 50/50 balls, that can change a whole game. It's just that energy, somebody has to do it. They call me the clean-up woman."

Natasha Mack's journey to the WNBA

It's been a long road to the WNBA for Natasha Mack. She was originally selected by the Chicago Sky with the No. 16 overall pick in the 2021 WNBA Draft. Her rookie year with the Sky was complete whirlwind. She was cut by the team right before the beginning of the season.

But the team kept rotating her in and out of the roster in the form of hardship contracts. WNBA teams are allowed to sign players above the roster maximum of 12 to hardship contracts if they are below the requisite number of available players. Mack was let go by the Sky for the final time about one month into the regular season.

She ended up signing a 7-day contract with the Minnesota Lynx later that season but did not finish the year on a WNBA roster. After that, she headed overseas and did not appear in the league until this season. It was a learning and eye-opening experience for Mack who had been one of the top defensive players in college basketball her senior year at Oklahoma State.

"You have to make this quick," Mack said. "You can just expect anything to happen for you. You have to work hard for it."

But hard work and determination have been a staple for Natasha Mack long before she joined the Mercury this season. She was one of the best high school players in Texas and had committed to the University of Houston in the Big 12 to play college basketball.

But things didn't quite work out and she ended up leaving the university without playing a single game. She ultimately ended up at Angelina College, a junior college in her hometown of Lufkin, Texas.

By the time he completed her second year at Angelina, she was the program's all-time leader in points and blocked shots. She was named the National Junior College Athletics Association (NJCAA) Player of the Year. Her standout play and hard work was what got her back to Division 1 at Oklahoma State.

Looking back on it, Mack credits her time at Angelina College with helping prepare her for what was to come.

"My experience, it was wonderful. It helped me find out who I am. It helped me get my foot back into the basketball world," Mack said. "And it helped me with my mentality. JuCo is not easy, not everybody makes it out. The fact that I made it out, I made it to D1, made it to the W, it's a testimony right there. JuCo, it really saved my life."

And that hard work and determination that's so evident when Mack steps on the court, is also what helped her get back to the WNBA following her rookie season.

For the past two years, Mack has been playing overseas in Poland, New Zealand and Turkey. She also played for the Montenegro national team in FIBA competition. Many WNBA players go overseas in the offseason as a means to supplant their income. But for players like Mack, overseas play can be a pathway back to the WNBA.

Sure enough, her play earned her a training camp invite with the Mercury this season that ultimately led to her making the final roster. And again, it was her hard work and mentality that helped her trek through her overseas journey and finally make it back to the WNBA.

"Adversity, you're gonna face a lot of that overseas. Language barriers, the roughness, the foul calls are not really given to you," Mack said. "That helped me mentally to prepare and not expect anything handed to me. Over there, you're American, they don't care. It really helped a lot. That prepared me for this right here, no foul calls, getting picked on my referees, I just take it."

Natasha Mack appeared in all 40 games for the Mercury this season, including 11 starts. She averaged 3.8 points, 5.2 rebounds and 1.2 blocked shots while shooting 57.3 percent from the field. She's an efficient player around the basket moving without the ball.

And she'll hit reserved free agency this offseason. That means that the Mercury has exclusive negotiating rights with her. Now it doesn't necessarily mean that she'll be back in Phoenix, but she's done enough to prove that she belongs in the WNBA.