When DeWanna Bonner joined the Fever, her “mama bear” presence won over the locker room. Caitlin Clark even said, “I want to win for her. This is the end of her career. She deserves it,” and the two shared playful moments in training camp. But things shifted after Bonner’s abrupt exit just nine games in, leaving fans frustrated and teammates feeling let down. By the time she returned to Indy in a Mercury jersey, fans were already booing her, and there was chatter about tension behind the scenes. Today’s heated exchange only added fuel to that storyline.

With CC being sidelined for yet another game due to her groin injury, the Fever entered the game against the Phoenix Mercury. As usual, it was intense, but the spotlight shifted to a different scene. It was at the 8:13 mark in the fourth quarter when Lexie Hull picked up a shooting foul.

But the Fever’s bench seemed to disagree with the call. A timeout was called then, after which both sides began to walk back toward their respective benches, except for DB and CC. The Indiana Fever sensation appeared to say something to Bonner, along with a shooing away gesture with her hand, as fans booed heavily. How could DB not respond? She said something back to CC then.

“You see Caitlin Clark to the right, behind the coach, coming out and jawing at D’Wanna Bonner. Bonner says, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was a foul. And Clark is saying, no, no foul, no foul… Yes, it was a foul.” the commentator explained it all the best.

The last time DB arrived in Indy for the first game since she was waived off the Fever, she received the exact same boos from the Fever crowd. She had four points in 21 minutes as Indy picked up the win over Mercury by 107-101 back then. Neither her former Fever teammates nor head coach Stephanie White had much to say about the exchange, insisting they were too locked in on the game to notice. The only ones to come to Bonner’s defense were her Mercury teammates, who were left baffled at Fever fans’ treatment of her.

“I just don’t understand. Like, she’s a legend. They booed her. She didn’t say a word to the crowd. People talked some trash to her, but we had her back…. It’s just very distasteful what their fan base is doing when it comes to DB. She is just the sweetest soul. The situation didn’t work for her. It just wasn’t what she wanted or whatever, but we don’t need all of that. It’s just unnecessary,” shared Kahleah Copper back then in an interview with IndyStar. Fans seem to have their own set of reasons, though.

Everyone knows the kind of adversities the Fever have had to sail through this season due to the growing injury list. Bonner, among the new faces who joined the Fever in the offseason, was supposed to stay loyal to the team. After playing nine games with Indy, she shared that the “fit” wasn’t right. Later, she was waived, and Aari was added to the roster.

Naturally, it didn’t sit well with the spectators, and they started seeing her as a “loser” who backed off when the team needed her. But, it wasn’t just Indy’s fanbase agitated with her!

Is there a beef between the Fever locker room and DB?

Ever since Sophie Cunningham started her podcast, Show Me Something, she’s been brutally honest. During the August 5th episode, even DB got a taste of it after Sophie was asked whether Bonner owed the Fever roster an explanation. “I’m still rooting for her. Like, I want her to end her career and be happy. But I also think that, like, it’s okay to be professional about it, and like send a text to your teammates. Send a text saying and be like, ‘Hey, love you guys.’ Or you don’t even have to say ‘Love you guys,’ just be like, ‘Hey, sorry this didn’t work out, good luck.’ You know what I mean? There’s a way to handle that, I think,” Cunningham replied back then.

Could the entire beef between the former teammates be all about a goodbye text? Though Bonner kept it professional and shared one, according to the Fever’s locker room, it wasn’t enough. After all, the team once shared a good bond with her. “I think we got a good group of kids. I say kids because I’m older, but a great group of ladies… They want to get to the next level, so you don’t really have to do too much,” Bonner shared with a grin during training camp. “Just trying to give all the knowledge I can, but saving my breath because they’re fast. They run a lot,” she added.

However, Sophie’s comments might have been what intensified the “beef” even more.

“There was some, maybe a little bit of beef because of our last podcast, with how I mentioned that some people could have handled situations [better]… I think that like, our teams don’t really like each other anyway, just because of like, I don’t know, just her leaving, some of those players used to be under our coaching staff, so there’s just a lot there. But I could have been way meaner, right?” Sophie shared during the August 13th episode, revealing how the podcast made everything worse. So, what CC did is yet another chapter to this rivalry in the making!