The Indiana Fever was faced with a lot of unexpected hurdles during the 2025 season, including five season-ending injuries and the unexpected departure of DeWanna Bonner, who was signed to the team with great fanfare in January 2025. Bonner unexpectedly left the Fever at the end of June after sitting out several games, and the reasons for her exit were never clarified for fans — or even for the team.
In an interview with Glamour published this week, Lexie Hull touched on the relationship with Bonner, and revealed that the veteran's decision to leave the team still stings a bit. As Hull put it, she saw Bonner's signing as an opportunity to grow more as a player — but it wasn't meant to be (at least, not that way).
"I was super, super, super excited because finally there’s a [player in my position] that I can look up to that has won in the league and has all these accomplishments and knows what it takes, and I can learn something from her," she told the magazine. "And then she randomly leaves, and we’re all just kind of like, ‘What happened?’ We were never given an explanation."
That fans weren't told the ins and outs of what made Bonner leave the Fever isn't all too surprising. Sharing that kind of information would have been inappropriate and distracting, and the Fever had a lot going on outside of whatever did or didn't happen with Bonner. But it is a little surprising that the same young athletes who were so excited to play with Bonner were also left wondering where things went wrong.
Hull added that the mystery ended up helping the team come together. "To have no explanation was really challenging, but I think that helped us grow closer together because we’re like, ‘All right, this is us. We’re here. We’re going to support each other. We’re loving each other. We’re going to fight for each other. We’re not going to leave. We’re in this together,'" she explained.
DeWanna Bonner said the "fit" was not right
Bonner herself offered little by way of an explanation in June and has not touched on the topic in any real seriousness since. She "sincerely" thanked the Fever organization for giving her the opportunity to continue to play for the team and Stephanie White (who she played under for the Connecticut Sun) and noted that she was grateful to the team for allowing her to move to Phoenix. Bonner joined her fiancée, Alyssa Thomas, in Arizona and the pair led the Mercury all the way to the WNBA Finals this season.