For a second, it looked like Chennedy Carter was here to stay.
Carter, who last played in the WNBA in 2024 and played in China last year, was given a shot by the Las Vegas Aces to prove that she can contribute to winning basketball.
And for two months, she had been doing just that. Carter is top five in the WNBA in points-per-36 minutes, shooting a career high 52 percent from 3 and averaging 12 points off the bench for the 15-6 Aces.
On Tuesday, just ahead
of the league’s midseason cut down date deadline, after which all non-guaranteed contracts become guaranteed, the Aces announced that they waived Carter.
The decision to cut ties came just two days after she played 15 minutes off the bench in a double-digit loss to the Fever.
For much of June, Carter had been out of the lineup due to injury, but, as she had returned to the court, it seems like lingering injury-related concerns were not why she was waived. After all, it’s hard to believe that Vegas would dump their leading bench scorer, even if injured, unless there was something happening behind closed doors.
This is, unfortunately, a familiar story for Carter
The elephant in the room is Carter’s history as a teammate and competitor.
The skill has never been in doubt.
Carter was drafted No. 4 overall to Atlanta in 2020, finishing second in Rookie of the Year voting after averaging more than 17 points per game. She only played 11 games the following season after the Dream suspended her for “conduct detrimental to the team,” stemming from an alleged locker room conflict. The Dream would end up trading Carter to the Sparks in 2022.
Carter finally broke 20 games played in her Sparks tenure, but didn’t see the scoring success nor the volume role that she had been granted in Atlanta. It was reported that she was benched multiple times due to poor conduct, and she was waived before the following 2023 season began.
Carter was not picked up for the 2023 season, and left the States for stints in both Turkey and China. Her success in China landed her a contract with the Chicago Sky for the 2024 season, where she averaged over 17 points per game for the first time since her rookie season. Despite being the team’s leading scorer, she was once again offered no contracts in the following offseason, and returned to China.
Will another team take a chance on Carter?
One of the criticisms, or questions, of Carter’s career entering 2026 was the lack of winning that had come with her stats on previous teams.
Carter’s teams had never broken 13 wins in her five seasons since turning pro. She led her team in scoring twice, but never appeared in a playoff game. She had never had a wildly inefficient season, although her 3-point percentage has fluctuated throughout her career, but she had been unable to lead a team to success as a No. 1 offensive option.
So, when Vegas came into the picture, it felt like a perfect fit.
Carter would be surrounded by proven winners, a strong culture and elite talent, and she would just be asked to come off the bench and give head coach Becky Hammon some buckets. That’s something we knew Carter could do.
But somehow, it’s once again all come crashing down. For the third time in her career, if not more, Carter’s world-class scoring hasn’t been enough to make up for whatever attitude clashes have been hidden behind closed doors.
Obviously, the Aces haven’t announced whether Carter was actually waived for off-court issues.
However, knowing Hammon’s low tolerance for poor culture setters, and Carter’s history in the league, it’s a fair assumption to make that she wasn’t waived for a lack of on-court ability. She was scoring, and the Aces were winning. If there is some alternate reason for her Vegas departure, we will likely find out soon.
So, if Carter couldn’t survive as the sixth player on the defending-champion super team, is there really a spot for her in this league?
At 27 years old, she’s doesn’t fit the timeline of the many rebuilding, youth-centered teams. Good teams, seeing what has appeared to play out with the Aces, may not want to take the risk on her affecting their locker room.
Carter is too good of a player to be banished to the China or another far-flung league once again, but her future looks like it may take another turn overseas. Despite finally finding a winning team and solid culture, Carter has returned to all-too familiar territory.
