DeWanna Bonner was supposed to be the missing piece.
Entering Caitlin Clark's second season, the Indiana Fever made a big push to surround their generational superstar with veteran talent. Bonner was the crown jewel, one of the best scorers in WNBA history.
It didn't work.
Bonner more or less disappeared, and the Fever eventually released her.
On Tuesday, Bonner's saga reached its at-this-point predictable conclusion. She signed with her former team, the Phoenix Mercury.
The Fever are left wondering what could've been.
Indiana still has a good team. The other veteran pickups, Natasha Howard and Sophie Cunningham, have been great.
But it's hard to win a title in the WNBA. With so few teams in the league, the best couple rosters are always loaded.
The Fever, led by Clark, Aliyah Boston and Kelsey Mitchell, are on the rise for sure. But they aren't the most loaded team in the league.
Clark can keep them in any game against any team. But Bonner was the type of player who could make that final difference in a hard-fought playoff game, and now she's gone.
She was hardly with Indiana before leaving, and so there's no way of knowing how this might've played out.
But if the Fever come up a few buckets short in the playoffs, it'll be easy to point to Bonner and wonder if she could have made the difference.
MORE: Lakers buying out LeBron James makes no sense as a concept