DeWanna Bonner left the Indiana Fever earlier this summer in a messy exit and eventually reunited with the Phoenix Mercury — the franchise with which she spent the first 10 years of her career and won two WNBA championships. The dramatic saga that concluded her Fever stint included an extended absence from the team and uncertainty about her future in the league, but now that the dust has settled, Bonner said she would not change a thing about the move back to Phoenix.
Bonner hit the open market June 25 when the Fever waived her. She missed the final two weeks of her stint in Indiana for personal reasons, and it was unclear if or when she planned to rejoin the team. She also reportedly contemplated retirement during her time away from the court.
“I wouldn’t do anything differently,” Bonner said on the Mercury’s current road trip. “I think my journey is my journey and I’m going to accept that. It carried me to where I am now in Phoenix and it happened that way for a reason.”
Bonner, the WNBA’s second-oldest active player behind only Seattle’s Alysha Clark, is the third all-time leading scorer in league history. The Mercury reunited with the most experienced player in WNBA playoff history, who earned six All-Star selections, won the Sixth Woman of the Year award in her first three years with the franchise, received MVP votes in six different seasons and logged a pair of All-WNBA selections.
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“Getting back to Phoenix after so long, the love and the welcome that I had was very much needed and appreciated,” Bonner said. “Coming back to people that I know.”
After her arrival in Indiana on the heels of a five-year stint with the Connecticut Sun, Bonner was expected to be a key addition for an ascending Fever team built around Caitlin Clark, but she never found her footing with the team. Before her departure, she averaged just 7.1 points per game while shooting a career-worst 34.5% from the field. The Fever pulled Bonner out of the starting lineup three games into the year.
Phoenix squares off against Indiana on Wednesday, and Bonner indicated that she will brush off any negative reception from Fever fans in the matchup with her old squad.
“I’m just going to go out and do my job,” Bonner said. “They have every right to go out and do what they want to do, I’m just going to go out and compete with my team.”
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