Fort Worth native returns with defending WNBA champions amid career-best year
Chennedy Carter started her WNBA journey in Texas, a Fort Worth native who starred at Mansfield Timberview before embarking on a successful college career with Texas A&M.
That helped her become the No. 4 pick in the 2020 WNBA draft.
Now playing for the defending WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces, Carter started her career with the Dream and spent two seasons in Atlanta before joining the Los Angeles Sparks and Chicago Sky for a season each and playing overseas in the 2025 season.
Carter’s journey wasn’t straightforward. The 5-foot-9 guard got suspended by the Dream for conduct detrimental to the team before being traded and failing to earn second contracts from the Sparks and Sky.
She talked Thursday before the Aces lost to the Dallas Wings about what she would tell a player dealing with a similarly tough journey.
“I would just say focus on, you know, what feeds you,” Carter said. “At the end of the day, I started focusing on what was putting money in my pocket. A crib in L.A., the car that I just purchased, so I just focused on the things that were keeping me happy and keeping my life together.
“And it wasn’t the WNBA, it was playing abroad, and that was able to keep me afloat and keep me really pushed all the way over to this point. I mean, I didn’t even have to play this year if I didn’t want to. So, really, it’s just focusing on your journey and your story.”
Carter had major success last season with Wuhan Shengfan in China, and she talked about how she’s used that to help the Aces this season.
“I think what people don’t understand is overseas, I faced like three, four or five defenders,” she said. “So you’re coming here talking to me about WNBA schemes, it’s like almost I laugh at it, because I’ve been dealing with, three and four and five people for four months, playing every other day.”
Carter said it didn’t hurt to play with A’Ja Wilson, Chelsea Gray and Jackie Young, three of the league’s best players, on the team that has won three of the past four WNBA championships, coached by Becky Hammon.
The results this season have been the best of Carter’s career. Through seven games entering Thursday, she is averaging 20.0 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game on 66% shooting from the field.
Over the past five games she’s kicked it up another notch, with Kelsey Plum, Wilson and Caitlin Clark the only players in the WNBA averaging more than her 22 points per game.
She said it was in part the Aces’ belief in her that has helped her have such a strong start.
“I think it’s more so just my story, being out, things I guess not really going the way I want them to go,” Carter said. “So, I guess being with a team that hand-selected me to be here, we just gonna show everybody, it’s personal.
“It’s been amazing. Becky’s really had my back. She’s been in my corner, and she lets me know that I’m truly allowed to be me. Good days, bad days, so that makes me feel comfortable, like I’m not walking on eggshells, you know what I mean? A lot of situations I’ve had to walk on eggshells, so that’s been unfair to me. So this is way easier, way comfortable, I can play. Teammates support me, no jealousy here.”
Hammon complimented Carter’s downhill scoring, calling her one of the league’s best.
“Points off the bench is something that we kind of bring it in waves. Each person’s got to deal with Chelsea, [Wilson] and Jackie out there,” Hammon said. “Chennedy is unique in the way that she attacks the game, approaches the rim. I don’t think there’s quite anybody like her, honestly, in the world the way she can get downhill and finish and get in traffic. But the other thing that we’ve been really working on is she’s a pretty willing passer, too, so that paint and spray, she’s deadly if she gets two feet in that paint.”
Carter has helped the Aces jump out to a 4-2 start and the team hopes she’ll be a key cog for them in their quest to win their second straight championship and their fourth in five seasons.
Game notes
Carter looked at home at College Park Center on Thursday, getting her game started with a jumper right beyond the free-throw line, and finished with 14 points with a rebound and a steal in her team’s 95-87 loss.
In the first half, Carter made her first five shots and was the first player in double figures for either team, and her defensive effort was frenetic with a steal and multiple deflections, with the guard coming out of seemingly nowhere to either take the ball or break up a pass on multiple occasions.
This story was originally published May 28, 2026 at 7:43 PM.
