Associated Press<\/p>\n
NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 DeWanna Bonner<\/a> is happy to be back home in Phoenix.<\/p>\n The veteran spent the first 10 years of her career with the Mercury<\/a> before leaving for Connecticut and then a brief stint in Indiana to start the season. When that didn’t work out, she signed with Phoenix earlier this month.<\/p>\n \u201cI wouldn\u2019t do anything differently. I think my journey is my journey and I\u2019m going to accept that,\u201d Bonner said. \u201cIt carried me to where I am now in Phoenix and it happened that way for a reason.”<\/p>\n The 37-year-old wing was focused on her future with Phoenix more than dwelling on the past or what went wrong in Indiana that ended with the team releasing her. <\/p>\n She did find the narrative that she was disgruntled to come off the bench amusing after starting the first few games for the Fever<\/a>. In the opener she moved into third on the WNBA<\/a> career scoring list.<\/p>\n \u201cThat wasn\u2019t ever the issue, that\u2019s never been me,\u201d said Bonner, who has won the WNBA Sixth Woman of the Year award three times. \u201cI have no problems coming off the bench. I have never been that player. I don\u2019t feel like I have that reputation.\u201d<\/p>\n Phoenix began a five-game road trip in New York on Friday night and lost 89-76. She had nine points.<\/p>\n \u201cDB is a really good addition for us. She can play the two, the three and four and maybe even some five, depending on different lineups that, we\u2019ll look at starting here, moving forward,\u201d Phoenix coach Nate Tibbetts said. \u201cShe\u2019s won championships. You know, her second game with us, we go on to Golden State, have some injuries and she goes for 22 and 11. You know, we\u2019re not winning that game without her so she\u2019s been a huge pickup for us.\u201d<\/p>\n The Mercury will head to Indiana on Wednesday and Bonner said she wasn’t sure what the reaction will be from the fans.<\/p>\n \u201cI’m just going to go out and do my job,\u201d she said. \u201cThey 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.\u201d<\/p>\n It wasn’t all bad in Indiana for Bonner, who was only a four-hour drive from her 7-year-old twin daughters, who turn eight soon. <\/p>\n \u201cI got to spend more time with them then before,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Bonner hopes to lift the Mercury to another championship. She helped the franchise win two after getting drafted fifth by the team in 2009.<\/p>\n \u201cGetting back to Phoenix after so long, the love and the welcome that I had was very much needed and appreciated,\u201d Bonner said. \u201cComing back to people that I know.\u201d<\/p>\n The biggest change she has seen in her time away has been in the building that the team plays in.<\/p>\n \u201cI walk into the arena for game day and I had no idea where I was going, and it was crazy because I was there for 10 years every day,\u201d Bonner said. \u201cEverything is different, but the fans are still the same, a couple people in the front office are the same.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n AP WNBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/wnba-basketball<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 DeWanna Bonner is happy to be back home in Phoenix. The veteran…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":50800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[62,67,132,68,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-94156","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114919723945911250","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}