It’s almost as if wherever DiJonai Carrington goes, controversy follows. Just days after her viral clash with Sophie Cunningham saw the Sky guard handed a Flagrant 2 and ejected, her subsequent social media activity ensured the spotlight stayed firmly on her. But as the Chicago Sky traveled to Golden State, it didn’t take long for Carrington to find herself at the center of attention once again.
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Clips posted on social media appeared to show Carrington making contact with the faces of two different Valkyries players. One, posted by user @Jajarbinksbinks, showed the Sky guard jumping to defend Tiffany Hayes as she drove inside from the right, split two defenders, and finished with a daring acrobatic layup. As Hayes went up for the shot, Carrington appeared to catch her across the face while attempting to block it.
Although the impact wasn’t as substantial as what happened when she tried to block Cunningham’s layup, the sequence was similar. Officials made no foul call on Carrington for this play. Rather, a shooting foul was called against Elizabeth Williams, who also caught Hayes while she took her shot.
In another clip reshared by BrickCenter, cameras caught Carrington making contact with Cecilia Zandalasini’s face.
Carrington, while defending against Zandalasini, is seen putting both her hands up and hitting Zandalasini in the face and catching her in the eyes with her right hand as she goes for the ball. The move sent the Valkyries’ number 24 to the ground, holding her face. The officials, however, once again decided to let the contact go without a technical.
Those moves even caught Jason Whitlock’s attention, who, despite his polarizing reputation among WNBA fans, posted, “out of the league,” and “Get this woman out of basketball,” on social media.
To make matters worse for DiJonai, she was handed a technical late in the third quarter after arguing with the officials, believing she had been fouled while attacking the basket.
Under the WNBA’s current rules, players are fined $500 for each of their first three technical fouls of a season. Technical fouls Nos. 4 through 7 carry a $1,000 fine, while an eighth technical brings a $1,500 fine and an automatic one-game suspension. Every two technical fouls after that result in another suspension.
Carrington is still well below that threshold, having picked up just two technicals this season, meaning this latest one should only cost her $500. But that comes after she was already fined $1,000 for the Flagrant 2 foul on Sophie Cunningham.
And questions have already been raised about Carrington avoiding a suspension, especially given that there is precedent for handing out harsher punishment for a similar play. During the 2021-22 NBA season, Grayson Allen faced major backlash for his foul on then-Chicago Bulls guard Alex Caruso, taking down the airborne guard as he went up for a fast-break layup.
Allen was assessed a Flagrant 2, ejected from the game, and subsequently handed a one-game suspension, a punishment the WNBA has not imposed on Carrington. The Sky guard, however, has maintained that there was no malice behind her foul on Cunningham.
“I’m never gonna let a open layup just be had. You can pull clips from however many seasons of me making that same exact play. It was unfortunate that I made contact with her in the way that I did, but it was never intentional,” Carrington had said.
Subsequently, Carrington did receive support from her coach after the Indiana Fever game, with Sky head coach Tyler Marsh saying he didn’t believe the foul warranted an upgrade to a Flagrant 2.
“In the moment, I thought that she made a play on the ball,” Marsh told reporters after the game.
“I didn’t think it warranted a flagrant two. I didn’t see the replay when it happened. So that was my initial thoughts. But the officials made what they made. I haven’t looked at that play since. So I really don’t know if it was justified or not. So that’s what I thought in the moment.”
But those comments are unlikely to pull Carrington out of the spotlight, especially as she is slowly building a reputation for being a much more physical presence on the court. Yet this is the same DiJonai Carrington who, not too long ago, was known primarily for being a quality perimeter defender rather than the player at the center of repeated controversial plays.
The Sky guard won the 2024 Most Improved Player award after a season in which she recorded three games with at least five steals and ranked ninth in the league in steals per game. Her defensive impact was a major reason the Connecticut Sun thrived on that end of the floor, leading the league in fewest points allowed at 73.6 per game and defensive rating at 94.1.
That said, Carrington has not offered any response this time, unlike after her ejection against the Fever, when she posted the date of the Sky’s rematch with Indiana, seemingly hinting that she couldn’t wait to get back on the court.
Carrington had backed that up with an impressive showing against the Seattle Storm, scoring 26 points in 27 minutes off the bench and proving she could still be a difference-maker for the Sky. But against the Valkyries, nothing went her way. She managed just 3 points in 24 minutes and went 1-for-9 from the field.
On the other hand, it was a game to remember for Tiffany Hayes, as she scored her season-high 22 points off the bench and added 6 rebounds and 5 assists. Veronica Burton added another 13 points and 6 rebounds as the Golden State Valkyries extended their winning streak to five games and marked Golden State’s 14th win in their last 16 games.
The Valkyries will look to extend their winning run as they take on the Wings next on August 17.