Marine Fauthoux delivering undeniable impact after long Liberty wait

It has been more than five years since Marine Fauthoux was drafted by the Liberty.

But only in the past two-plus weeks has the French guard shown Brooklyn what it was missing. 

“She’s just so poised,” Sabrina Ionescu said following Monday’s win over the Storm. “She missed a lot of time at the beginning of the year … and it feels like she hasn’t missed a beat. She’s able to come in, make play after play, she gets deflections, she gets [offensive] boards, she pushes the ball, she makes great passes and reads, she doesn’t turn the ball over a lot, she makes big shots when we need it. 

“I’d say you can tell that she’s been playing at a really high level for a really long time, but to be able to see that translate to the W[NBA] in the really short amount of time is really telling about her and her potential because it means she’s just gonna continue to get better.”

Fauthoux, 25, made her WNBA debut only two months ago. 

After a few cameos, the draft-and-stash rookie — who tore her left ACL last year — didn’t appear for 12 straight games before returning to action July 18, when the Liberty suffered their eighth loss in 10 games. 

Since then, the Liberty (18-13) have won five of their past six games, with Fauthoux playing a key role off the bench in each contest.

Since being inserted into the rotation — coinciding with the benching of Betnijah Laney-Hamilton — Fauthoux is playing more than 18 minutes per game, averaging 6.1 points, 3.1 rebounds and 2.3 assists, while shooting 44.8 percent from the field (36.8 percent on 3-pointers).

In Monday’s win, Fauthoux had a career-high five assists in 14 minutes. Six days earlier, she scored a career-best 13 points in a win at Los Angeles. A week before that, the 5-foot-9 guard posted a double-double (10 points, 10 rebounds) in an overtime win at Dallas.

“I just want to win,” Fauthoux said. “Every time I’m on the court, I want to give my best. It’s the most important for me to help the team and fight.”

Fauthoux can only appear in two more games (12 total) as a developmental player before the Liberty would have to convert her to a standard contract and waive another player from the roster, such as Laney-Hamilton or rookie Raquel Carrera. (Another wrinkle: Fauthoux could miss as many as four games later this month to participate in a training camp with the French women’s team before the FIBA World Cup.)

But it doesn’t sound like head coach Chris DeMarco sees another choice.

“The compete level with Marine is just so high and she does all these little things that’s not going to show up in a boxscore,” DeMarco said. “She’ll catch the ball on the wing and she’ll fake a little bit just to move a defender, set up a pick-and-roll. She’ll use her eyes to look this way, find the pocket. She does all these little things that just aren’t going to pop unless you’re really looking at each individual action.

“It’s just those intangibles, and then defensively, she’s in the right spots and she competes and she just elevates our other players. So the way she’s been playing, she’s going to get those minutes.”