Bonner, Boca and bonding: Inside the signing, team trip that helped lift the Atlanta Dream to the WNBA Finals

ATLANTA — DeWanna Bonner is seasoned. She has played on 17 different rosters and for five franchises. She's won championships and lost them. Only once has she watched the postseason from the couch in a season she's been available.

At 39 years old, she is nearing the end of an illustrious career that spanned legends and eras. She has played with Diana Taurasi and Caitlin Clark. She's played against the Las Vegas Aces when they were in San Antonio and the Dallas Wings when they were the Detroit Shock.

It is meaningful, then, that one of her favorite trips of her career came less than two months ago. The ink on the contract with the Atlanta Dream had barely dried when she joined her new teammates and coaches on a Labor Day weekend trip to Boca Raton, Florida, during the FIBA World Cup break.

The purpose of the trip had nothing to do with the late-season acquisition of Bonner, who signed with her third team in two seasons, eyeing a third WNBA championship as her career winds down. The itinerary was already booked a couple of weeks prior by the front office, a copycat of a trip to the same resort during the 2024 Paris Olympics, which gave players space to refresh and reconnect.

Kismet cannot be planned. They had no idea they were designing an ideal situation for the 17-year veteran to mesh seamlessly and build chemistry on an ultra-short timeline.

"She was always going to fit in really well with our team, no matter what," Dream assistant general manager Brooklyn Cartwright told Yahoo Sports. "It's one of the reasons that we were able to acquire her when we did. But from a chemistry standpoint, [the trip] certainly didn't hurt."

After the mandated seven-day vacation period for the FIBA break, the Dream spent four days practicing at Florida Atlantic University and lounging around the resort while teammates Angel Reese and Rhyne Howard won World Cup gold with Team USA. The change of scenery broke the monotony of practices at Gateway Center Arena in Atlanta.

Instead of heading their own ways after practice as they might in their home market, and without family or friends around, they hit the beach and the pool together. Older bonds solidified. New bonds formed organically.

"It's just been up from there with us, and kind of been locked in since then," Bonner said after shootaround ahead of a Game 2 semifinals win over New York.

That might be an understatement. Upon their return to play to finish the regular season, the Dream fell to a feisty Portland Fire team out of the playoff picture, but haven't lost since. They enter the WNBA Finals on a 10-game winning streak that includes regular-season defeats of the No. 1 seed Minnesota Lynx and No. 8 New York Liberty, plus sweeps of the No. 5 Washington Mystics in the first round and the Liberty in the semifinals. The previous season-best winning streak was five games in July.

The Dream's first WNBA Finals since 2013 will begin Saturday against the No. 2 Golden State Valkyries at Chase Center. Games 3 and 4 were moved to the larger State Farm Arena in downtown Atlanta after coordination from the WNBA, NBA, Valkyries, Hawks and broadcast partners . The independent franchise is in its fourth Finals, but has yet to win a WNBA championship since entering the league as an expansion team in 2008.

That path goes directly through Boca and Bonner.

"I have an attention span out the window," Paopao said. "I got a good 60 minutes, maybe 90 minutes in me."

Bonner noticed that early. As she saw Paopao begin to fade late in practices, she'd walk over her way. Give me 15 more minutes , the vet told her. Stay locked in. And then you can do whatever you want.

"Just hearing someone like Miss DeWanna say that to me, it means a lot," the second-year guard said. "I respect her as a player, as a person as well, and she's done a lot these last couple of weeks. … It just feels like she's been here from the jump."

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Bonner's introduction to the Dream was seamless, and players made it easy for her to step quickly into the fold, she said. Though her "head's always spinning" with all the new people, plays and a fresh city, she hasn't missed any opportunity to impart wisdom on a group yearning for it.

"She touches everybody," forward Brionna Jones, who was ruled out of the postseason with a leg injury, told Yahoo Sports. "She makes sure she is whatever that person needs."

Her relationship with Reese dates back to the young star's rookie year in Chicago, when they began discussing fashion with each other. Reese said she felt "adopted" early on by Bonner and other vets, naming WNBA Players Association (WNBPA) president Nneka Ogwumike, former Aces champion Dearica Hamby and Alyssa Thomas, Bonner's fiancé.

"It's just a league where they really take in their sisters and the younger players, and I think everybody was just owning me from the beginning," Reese said.

As teammates, Bonner challenged her daily to be the Dream's engine. Reese, the third-year forward the Dream acquired via trade to open the offseason, came to Atlanta as the missing piece to help them over their skid of first-round exits.

"She's always been in my ear about, you need to come out smoking, because if you don't come out smoking, nobody else is going to," Reese said. "So she thinks I start it off and everybody else follows suit."

Since Bonner joined the roster, Reese is averaging 19.1 points, shooting 56.2% from the floor, with 3.7 assists and 2.3 steals over 10 games. All are above her season-long marks of 16.4 points (45.1%), 2.8 assists and 1.8 steals.

When the Dream ousted the Mystics — an even younger, less experienced squad that outperformed expectations — Bonner stepped between Reese and Allisha Gray while they taunted the crowd with good-bye motions. It was a vet move.

"She always challenges us," Reese said after the semifinals Game 1 win. "She always keeps us humble. She keeps us together. Keeps us pretty grounded. Sometimes I'm like, do you ever smile? Like, why are you not smiling? We just won."

Bonner was once that young player soaking in knowledge and confidence from veterans chasing a championship. The Phoenix Mercury drafted her fifth overall out of Auburn in 2009, raising eyebrows for her long, skinny "beanpole" frame she still carries into arenas.

She said during the semifinals that she hasn't changed her habits or preparation at all over her career, during which she's averaged 14.3 points, 6 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.2 steals per game. A two-time all-WNBA honoree, she's received MVP votes six times and won the 2015 Defensive Player of the Year award.

She's also never failed to name-drop the WNBA legends who contributed to her success and leadership.

Taurasi, the league's all-time scorer who spent all 20 seasons in Phoenix, was in her fifth WNBA season out of Connecticut with the 2007 title to her name when Bonner came to town. Australian Penny Taylor was in her seventh year, and Cappie Pondexter, the 2007 Finals MVP, was in year three out of Rutgers.

"I try to lead by example," Bonner said. "Always been that way, and like I always say, I learned from the best."

They won the 2009 title together in Bonner's rookie season, but lost in the Western Conference Finals under the prior playoff format in three of the next four years. Bonner earned the Sixth Player of the Year award in her first three seasons until moving into the starting lineup, where she, Taurasi, Taylor, Candice Dupree and Brittney Griner, then a rookie, won it again in 2014.

By the time the Connecticut Sun acquired Bonner for three No. 1 picks in 2020, a new era of free agency for the WNBA, Bonner became the type of experienced vet who could push a team over a postseason hump. She played in 61 postseason games over 10 seasons with Phoenix, and joined a strong group in Connecticut that included Jones, then a reserve center poised to break through for her own Sixth Player honors.

They reached the semifinals five times and the Finals once, but didn't win a title before the core broke up in the 2025 free agency period. Jones, who then left for Atlanta, already knew and looked forward to what Bonner would bring to the Dream.

"Being here [in Atlanta] last year and then this year seeing the difference going into the playoffs, she brought that urgency, that energy," Jones said. "That's what we needed."

The Dream earned playoff spots each of the last three seasons, led by their 2022 No. 1 overall pick Howard, but hadn't made it out of the first round. Jordin Canada, Jones and Shatori Walker-Kimbrough, a 2019 champion with the Mystics who played limited minutes all season, were their only established vets at the start of the season who had gone to the Finals. Gray, their leading scorer, is in her ninth season, and played in six playoff games in four seasons with Dallas before the Dream traded for her in 2023. Howard and Naz Hillmon have only been in Atlanta. Reese had never reached the postseason in Chicago.

Bonner's WNBA record 103 playoff games, as well as 17,152 career minutes and 8,243 points, both ranking third all-time, are pivotal. She began imparting the wealth of knowledge immediately in Boca and hasn't stopped.

"It's when she really took me under her wing and started talking to me a lot and just saying that you know Pao, there's a lot for you out there and you just have to stay locked in," Paopao, who played a postseason-high 10:24 in a pivotal Game 2 overtime win, said. "She's been in my ear since then."

Karl Smesko, the Dream's second-year head coach, will often enter the locker room at halftime only to realize the players were already discussing the same adjustments he and the coaching staff were prepared to implement.

To have Bonner light into the team at halftime also helps. Bonner declined to share what she said to motivate her team during Game 1 of the semifinals , opting to keep it to the team during a crucial series they ended up sweeping with relative ease. If Canada's analysis is any indication, it centered on the team's lack of aggression and defensive standards.

The results were clear. After trailing by a possession at the break, 50-47, they turned the Liberty over nine times for 16 points in the third quarter alone . It was more than New York's 15 points total in the quarter. One-third of their total offense that game came off turnovers (32 points in a 92-82 win), tying the WNBA postseason record for points off turnovers.

Bonner reached double digits once in her five regular-season games in Atlanta, all as a sixth player off the bench. But when Allisha Gray exited the first game with a hand injury ( her status remains day-to-day after undergoing a procedure ), Bonner stepped up for a postseason-high 23 points, 9 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals in Game 1. She shot 10 of 18 from the floor and 3 of 6 from 3-point range.

"I thought she was exactly what we needed, and not just because she's a veteran presence and all the experience," Smesko said after the tone-setting victory. "Because she still plays like she did tonight. That was a huge performance, and when we needed a play, she made it."

Bonner played at least 30 minutes in every game of the semifinals, while the Dream aced the test of their bench depth. She gives the team versatility, spacing and know-how, an aspect Smesko appreciated.

"She has a sense of what she should do on the play, even if she never ran the play before," Smesko said. "And then she just knows where the ball should move and what the next action should be. And she has a lot of enthusiasm when she plays, but she has a calming presence about her."

The Dream front office attempted to acquire her a few different times in previous free agency periods to no avail. It finally came to fruition on Aug. 27, three days after Mercury granted her a contract buyout so she could chase a championship. Phoenix was already out of playoff contention; the Dream were short on depth and postseason experience, leaning largely on the on-court play of Canada, a two-time Storm champion.

That doesn't always mean a late-season addition will slide into the fold without a wrinkle. The Dream had to speed up the chemical reaction of teammate relationships with four regular-season games in seven days upon the league's return from the international break. All eight playoff teams were set, but none had secured seeding.

Hillmon, a steal in the 2022 draft, put a bug in Cartwright's ear weeks earlier when the calendar turned to August.

"She's very casual," Cartwright said. "She'll walk by and drop a little, 'Hey, we gonna go back to Boca? I would love to go back to Boca.'"

Canada also dropped hints, as one of the players who went on the 2024 excursion. Conditioning hits different when it's done at the beach or in a lazy river, swimming against the current.

Cartwright and general manager Dan Padover took it to the ownership group, who were huge proponents of it, Cartwright said. The approval to fund it came quickly. The team left one week after Bonner signed the contract.

"It really helped kind of give her a really nice intro into what life as an Atlanta Dream [player] is like," Cartwright told Yahoo Sports. "When you practice at home, you just kind of go home. So it gave them a lot of time to get a few more hours together, which I think definitely helped in building chemistry as quickly as they were able to."

Paopao, who called the location the "right vibe" with a quiet, old-town type lifestyle, enjoyed shopping at high-end stores and nabbed a Goyard bag. She was among the group that wanted to go paddleboarding if the weather had been better. Smesko walked the beach.

Cartwright and the front office planned more specific team and group events, such as massages and manicures. They held a team dinner one night featuring a WNBA trivia contest that drew rave reviews and was Padover's favorite activity. Most players spent time at the beach and the pool throughout the weekend.

But off-court chemistry, while important, is nothing without it working on the court. The league-wide question of who would benefit from the FIBA break has its answer. The Dream players who remained in the States refocused in practices at FAU.

"During the season, it's easy to have some slippage," Smesko said. "Things you were good at get a little bit worse, and you don't have a lot of time to get things as corrected and sharp. We had a plan of things that we really wanted to get better at, especially defensively."

Howard, Canada and Reese ranked top-three in steals during the regular season, leading the league's most steal-happy unit (9.1 per game). Reese earned her first Defensive Player of the Year trophy, lifting it to the home crowd at the start of the semifinals series. They ranked third in overall defensive rating, limiting fastbreak and second-chance points, and upped their tenacity in the playoffs. They're averaging a postseason-best 10.4 steals per game (the Valkyries averaged 7) and allowed barely a bucket to opponents in transition (2.6 ppg).

"Being in Boca definitely helped that a lot," Jones said. "Just being able to have practice time, because throughout the season we haven't had time to just practice and get things the way we want them to be exactly."

There were no trips planned the week heading into the Finals, except the cross-country flight to San Francisco on Wednesday. But with the semifinals sweep, and that of the Valkyries over the Aces the same night, the Dream received another eight days of honed-in practice for what will be a defensive showcase.

Scroll down Bonner's Basketball Reference page, and an inside-the-WNBA joke pops out amid the chart of numbers.

2017 — age: 29 — Did Not Play (maternity — twins!)

This is the claim to fame by which most have known Bonner, as an earworm in the league's 2021 "Count It" marketing campaign . The commercial includes a reference to women who played after childbirth, noting Bonner had twins — "count that twice."

The girls are 9 now and aware their mom is a basketball star. An hour before the Dream secured the sweep in a Game 3 victory in Brooklyn, they bounded up into the Barclays Center tunnel to find their seats. Thomas brings up the rear, answering their random pestering.

It is the first time since 2019 that the couple is not finishing the year on the same roster. Thomas started her playing career in Connecticut in 2014, and they began dating in 2020, shortly after Bonner joined the team. When the core broke up before the 2025 season, Thomas joined the Mercury and Bonner signed with the Indiana Fever.

The Fever waived Bonner on June 25, 2025, after they had listed her as away for "personal reasons." Bonner said in a statement the "fit did not work out," and she "appreciate[d] the organization's willingness to grant my request to move on, particularly at this point in my career."

The Mercury signed her midseason. Together, Bonner and Thomas reached the Finals with the Mercury in 2025, but were swiftly swept by the Aces and A'ja Wilson. This fall is the first time since 2021, and only the third time in nine years, that neither Wilson nor Breanna Stewart will lift the trophy. It opened the door not only for a new crop of champions, but a veteran whose career spans back past theirs.

For the first time in a while, she has someone to lean on at home who isn't stepping onto the court with her. Bonner is more of a nervous, anxious player, she said, while Thomas is "cool, calm and collected all the time." They can dissect Bonner's game and assess improvements for the next together in a way they couldn't when they were teammates. But they don't take stock of her resume or what winning a final championship would do to it.

"Anytime you take a loss in the playoffs, it's depressing," Bonner said ahead of the semifinals.

On the eve of her 15th semifinals, she doesn't want to or truly can't think of a series that has stuck with her the most in her career, preferring to focus on the now.

The 680-game veteran has told her teammates repeatedly in their 35 days since that trip to Boca Raton to be where their feet are and not look past the task at hand. She has to lead by example and do the same.