Hours before her W.N.B.A. debut last month, Yvonne Turner joined her fellow rookies in an elaborate game of fetch.

In what has become a game-day ritual for the Phoenix Mercury, Brittney Griner, a fifth-year center and the league’s leading scorer, punted basketball after basketball into the empty lower bowl of eggplant-purple seats at Talking Stick Resort Arena for the rookies to collect.

Turner is one of five rookies on the Mercury; no team has more. And no rookie was spared from the good-humored hazing — not even Turner, who, at 29, is three years Griner’s senior and older than all but four players on the team.

Chasing down basketballs does not bother her.

“I’d rather do that than have to dress up in airports while we’re traveling,” she said with a laugh. “Like, Halloween-type dress-up.”