DeWanna Bonner has now exited two WNBA rosters in consecutive years without either franchise recovering so much as a second-round pick for her. Now, based on how you look at it, it’s a quirk that says as much about the league’s culture as it does about a 39-year-old’s career winding down.
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Indiana waived her in June after she spent two weeks away from the team for “personal reasons” and couldn’t find a trade partner willing to take on her deal. After re-signing with Phoenix in April, she was let go again, this time through a negotiated buyout with roughly seven games left on the Mercury’s season. That pattern is what pulled WNBA analyst Rachel DeMita into the story on her Courtside Club podcast.
DeMita’s focus wasn’t the exit itself but how Mercury general manager Nick U’Ren explained it. In the team’s official release, U’Ren said the sides “worked out a buyout agreement” built on their relationship, one that lets Bonner “chase a title in what could be her final postseason”.
DeMita called that framing “a crazy admission from the general manager,” arguing that a front office publicly tying a buyout to a veteran’s opportunity to chase another title could draw scrutiny in a league with tighter margins for error.
“If this were any other league, I feel like she would be so scrutinized for this. But you can’t even blame her. With every team that she’s been on, or at least the last two teams, if she wants out, she gets out. With the Indiana Fever, she left the Indiana Fever, and they didn’t even trade for her. They got nothing in return. They essentially just let her walk. And that’s the thing with the Phoenix Mercury. The Phoenix Mercury got nothing for her, and they had to pay her.”
To understand what DeMita is trying to say, we have to look at the precedent. Indiana got nothing for Bonner and simply cut her loose on waivers when a trade didn’t materialize. Phoenix followed the same shape, except the Mercury agreed to a reported $451,220 buyout on the $500,000 contract she signed in April. DeMita’s read was that teams rarely extend that kind of concession unless a player has already shown she can set her own terms.
“So it’s like, DeWanna is literally doing whatever she wants to do,” DeMita added.
That leverage traces back to a résumé few in the league can match. Bonner became just the third player in WNBA history to reach 8,000 career points this season and moved into sole possession of the league’s all-time wins record with 379 combined regular-season and playoff victories before her exit.
Her agent, Mike Cound, told ESPN that “many teams in the league wouldn’t consider” a buyout like this, calling Phoenix’s willingness a special circumstance rather than standard practice.
Bonner has since cleared waivers and agreed to a prorated deal with the Atlanta Dream for the rest of the season, leaving fiancée and Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas behind in Phoenix to chase a third championship elsewhere.