Guard Courtney Williams is returning to the Connecticut Sun as a free agent, the team announced Wednesday.
Williams spent the previous two WNBA seasons with the Atlanta Dream and was their leading scorer in 2021 at 16.5 points per game. The No. 8 pick in the 2016 draft out of South Florida, Williams started her career with the Phoenix Mercury. She was soon traded to Connecticut and spent most of her rookie season and all of 2017-19 with the Sun. She was a key player in Connecticut's run to the 2019 WNBA Finals, where the Sun fell to the Washington Mystics.
Before the 2020 season, Williams was traded to Atlanta. The Dream opted not to bring her back for 2022 after it came to light this past October that she had been involved in an off-court fight in May and had made a YouTube video making light of it. Williams soon removed the video and publicly apologized.
Sun coach and general manager Curt Miller said Wednesday in a video call that he spoke to Williams about the incident and added that her former Sun teammates advocated for her return to Connecticut.
"We talked to Courtney," Miller said. "Expectations on what it means to be a Connecticut Sun [player] and come back into our culture. Certainly, we've had some great conversations in this free-agency period.
"There's a trust from Courtney to us that we will put her in position to be successful. I think being back around what she would say are her sisters, and the love that she feels not only from the veteran players but our fan base and our franchise, there's a comfort level coming off the year she had to be back with this family. I love coaching Courtney. She's easy to coach and she loves the game."