DeWanna Bonner could be the WNBA Finals' biggest X-Factor -- and she took an unlikely path to the Dream

The veteran joined Atlanta just two months ago and is now one of the biggest reasons why the Dream are in the Finals

Oct 16, 2026 at 9:23 pm ET • 3 min read

SAN FRANCISCO -- Less than two months ago, on Aug. 22, DeWanna Bonner scored 12 points and grabbed nine rebounds for the Phoenix Mercury in a 10-point loss to the Atlanta Dream. By then, the Mercury had long since become the first team since 2008 to miss the playoffs in the season following a Finals appearance. And what may be the final season of the 39-year-old Bonner's storied career was nearing a depressing end. 

Until, two days later, when the Mercury released Bonner just before the deadline for player playoff eligibility from waivers. Three days after that, on Aug. 27, Bonner signed with the Dream for the remainder of the season. 

"It happened that Phoenix and her worked out a deal to allow her to make a run in the postseason and that turned into a mini-free agency with a bunch of teams that went after her," Dream general manager Dan Padover said earlier this month. "We were fortunate that we had made a run at her the last few free agencies. She has a great relationship with our players, which helped."

Padover took over the Dream's basketball operations in 2022, and over the last four years made five separate trades to acquire all five members of Atlanta's starting lineup: Jordin Canada, Allisha Gray, Rhyne Howard, Naz Hillmon and Angel Reese. That's three All-Stars, last season's Sixth Player of the Year, this season's Defensive Player of the Year and three All-Defensive honorees. 

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And yet, without Bonner falling in their lap, the Dream might not be in the Finals for the first time since 2013. 

"I think she's made a difference both in terms of how good a player she is. She contributes to winning every time she's out there. And I think she has everybody's attention," Dream coach Karl Smesko said Friday after the team's last pre-Finals practice. "She has the right thing to say at the right moment. She's just been a great addition for us as a player and as a leader."

Now in her 17th season, Bonner has won two championships and is the only player in WNBA history to surpass 100 postseason appearances. "She's played more playoff games than I have regular-season games," Dream rookie Isobel Borlase joked. That's underselling it. Bonner's 103 playoff games are more than double Borlase's 44 career games. When Bonner made her debut back in 2009, Borlase wasn't even 5 years old. 

"It's experience, and you can't buy it," Borlase said. "I think the biggest thing for us in the locker room is just her voice. She's a calming voice but also a motivator. She knows when to tell us to pull it together and when to calm down." 

The rest of the Dream roster had a combined 120 playoff appearances entering this postseason, and Canada and Shatori Walker-Kimbrough, who isn't in the rotation, are the only other players with a ring. "She knows what it takes to win a championship," Gray said. "When DB speaks, you listen." Reese added that Bonner has kept the team "humble" and "grounded," and "told us how important every little detail is gonna be." 

Bonner, for her part, said that the biggest lesson she's tried to impart is the importance of staying "even keel," especially in a seven-game series. (The Finals were expanded to best-of-seven last season.) "You gotta manage yourself, you gotta manage your emotions, you gotta manage your body," Bonner said. 

Of course, all Bonner's intangibles would mean little without production, and she's playing her best basketball of the season in the playoffs.

In Game 1 of the first round against the Washington Mystics, Bonner took over the third quarter to turn an 11-point deficit into 15-point win, and the Dream have never looked back. Bonner has scored in double figures in four of the Dream's five playoff games and put up 23 points in Game 1 of the semifinals against the New York Liberty after Gray went down with a hand injury. She then stepped into the starting lineup for the remainder of the semis and recorded the 20th double-double of her playoff career in the series-clinching Game 3 win. 

Just look at the splits between Bonner's regular-season numbers and her playoff numbers. 

Period	PPG	RPG	APG	SPG	FG%	3FG%
Reg. Season	10.4	6	1.6	1.1	40.2	27.9
Playoffs	13.2	6.4	1.6	1	44.9	36.8

Bonner credited her teammates for making it "easy" for her to come in and assume a leadership role so late in the season. 

"They accepted it. They're teaching me a lot at the same time," Bonner said. "I'm coming into a team that they've been playing this way all season, so I'm learning as well. We just switch off. They give me a lot of in-game experience and I'm giving them a little bit of knowledge."

Together, they could give Atlanta its first ever WNBA championship.