Veteran Connecticut Sun team returns Thomas, Bonner, Jones, getting down to business fast

Mohegan — It was the second day of practice and Connecticut Sun coach Stephanie White, baseball hat pulled down low, was using a clipboard to take notes on a team session taking place inside Mohegan Sun Arena.

White, in her second season, calls herself a nerd.

“I was prepping for a game broadcasting (this winter) and I saw an action that I liked on a flight and so I wrote it on a flight napkin,” White said earlier this week. “I just got rid of the napkin yesterday because it was starting to get all torn up. I was like, ‘Oh, I need to transfer this over.’

“So my brain is always working that way. I think even when I wasn’t coaching ... I’m intrigued by those kinds of things.”

Now, the Sun, which finished 27-13 during the regular season and fell to the New York Liberty in the semifinals of the WNBA Playoffs in 2023, go about getting better.

The Sun, under White, who runs a more instinctive read-and-react pro-style offense — as opposed to her calling every play — have gotten straight down to business.

Connecticut returns a pair of veteran All-Stars in Alyssa Thomas (15.5 points, 9.9 rebounds, 7.9 assists) and DeWanna Bonner (17.4 points, 5.6 rebounds), in addition to 6-foot-3 post player Brionna Jones, who played just 13 games last season before rupturing her Achilles.

Jones was averaging 15.9 points and 8.2 rebounds at the time of her injury and the Sun had beaten eventual WNBA champ Las Vegas 94-77 just 12 days earlier.

“We still have a lot of people returning from last year so I think that chemistry and that foundation that we had from last year, having that first year under Steph, everybody’s understanding the offense that way, so I think that helps going into this camp,” Jones said.

“Last camp was a lot of learning for everybody. (This year), having vets that have already been through it with Steph, that helps.”

The Sun had four selections in the 2024 WNBA Draft, choosing French guard Leila Lacan with the 10th overall pick in the first round. Lacan will not likely join the Sun this year, scheduled to play for the French National Team in the Olympics this summer in Paris.

The Sun will retain the rights to her and Abbey Hsu of Columbia, drafted 34th overall.

Draft choices Taiyanna Jackson (19th pick out of Kansas) and Helena Pueyo (22nd pick out of Arizona) are in camp.

In all, there are 18 players in Sun camp, seven returning from last year in Thomas, Bonner, Jones, DiJonai Carrington, Ty Harris, UConn grad Olivia Nelson-Ododa and Leigha Brown.

The Sun traded for point guard Moriah Jefferson, who won four national championships alongside Breanna Stewart at UConn, sending Rebecca Allen to Phoenix on Feb. 3. They also acquired guard Tiffany Mitchell in a trade on Jan. 31 that sent point guard Natisha Hiedeman to the Minnesota Lynx.

The Sun picked up free agents Astou Ndour-Fall, a 6-foot-5 center/forward, and former Sun guard Rachel Banham. Rennia Davis, Shey Peddy, Kianna Smith, Sydney Wiese and Jocelyn Willoughby all signed training camp contracts.

Connecticut must pare its roster to 12, or more likely 11, by May 13 before opening the season May 14 at home against the Indiana Fever and No. 1 draft pick Caitlin Clark of Iowa.

“The first two days have been good,” White said. “We’ve got a lot of familiarity with where we are in the system and kind of being able to build on it. We have some veterans that we brought in that were new but we’re not really reteaching a lot of things.

“We have a deep roster of returning players so we don’t have a lot of open spots anyway, and then the people that we brought in are veterans so we can accelerate, I think, where we want to get to.”

With a deep WNBA Draft, it seems as if every team around the league improved, including Indiana, which has now had No. 1 draft picks in back-to-back years, with 2023 No. 1 Aliyah Boston, followed by Clark.

What the Sun accomplished last year isn’t going to be good enough, White said, with the goal to build on that.

“Teams got better. Everybody got better,” she said. “You gotta find an edge. You gotta find a way to separate yourself, to be different. We can’t be predictable. We’ve got to be able to change things up. We’ve got to be able to give teams different looks, not just each time we play them but throughout the course of a game.

“We’ve got to play smarter instead of harder sometimes. We’ve got to play chess and not checkers.”

With Jones out last season, Bonner, a 6-4 guard/forward, was required to do more work in the paint, a spot she will happily yield to Jones again — “just having her back, you know your paint is secure,” Bonner said.

Bonner, a five-time All-Star and a former WNBA champion with Phoenix, is entering her 15th year in the league and her fifth in Connecticut. As the Sun try to win their first WNBA title, Bonner said the Sun aren’t worried about the other teams and their up-and-coming stars, but focusing in on themselves.

“We’ve built a foundation here. We know what kind of team that we are,” Bonner said. “It doesn’t matter who’s on the other side of the jersey. We want to play the same way. That’s what Connecticut’s about. Everybody knows they’re going to get hard-nosed basketball.

“When I leave Connecticut, I want to leave it better than when I came in. That’s always my ultimate goal.”

v.fulkerson@theday.com