A Cheating Scandal Rocks the WNBA as DiJonai Carrington Says NaLyssa Smith Cheated on Her With Several Other Players

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This was WNBA stars NaLyssa Smith and DiJonai Carrington, during happier times in their lives. The two were dating. Seemingly a match made in heaven. Two women in love, playing the sport that they love. A fairy tale romance if ever their was one. 

There's just one problem with living a fairy tale. They're not true. 

Jack Mac posted this recap of what went wrong for these to star-crossed lovers:

But just to put it into the written word for those of you who can't play the audio out of fear of getting caught goofing off at work, here's a rundown in the written word, so you can appear to look busy earning your salary:

NY Post -  The WNBA was in the headlines on Sunday, but not for what took place over the weekend during the All-Star festivities in Chicago.

The Chicago Sky’s DiJonai Carrington alleged on social media Sunday morning that her ex-girlfriend, Aces forward NaLyssa Smith, cheated on her with multiple WNBA players before they split last year.

Carrington specifically named Deja Kelly and Aaliyah Nye in her post on Threads. …

It’s unclear what prompted Carrington to publicly disclose the information around her former relationship with Smith, who she had begun dating back in 2020 while they both played for Baylor’s women’s basketball team. 

Their relationship continued after they made the jump to the WNBA and even when the couple was briefly teammates while on the Wings during the 2025 season.

Smith, Kelly and Nye have not made any public comments about the accusation.

Before we go any further, it's important to get a scouting report on the players being named here. If Carrington is going to be publicly accusing Smith of being unfaithful to her, we ought to at least understand the talent level involved.

First, there's Carrington, here using the clever caption "the snack that smiles back":

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Next, here's Deja Kelly:

And finally, Aaliyah Nye:

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As of this writing, we have no information on who the "+++ many more" Carrington was referring to are. Just that, if it's true Smith was running around with these two, that the "many more" are undoubtedly "+++" talents. Because Nalyssa can clearly spot the good ones to team up with. 

Which brings me to the larger issue of how you manage a league where the athletes are running around sleeping with each other. This came up in a post a couple of weeks ago about Australian cricket:

I made the point that athletes have been objects of sexual desire since the time of the Roman gladiators. And cited a bunch of examples from professional team sports of the past hundred-plus years. There's no doubt sexual politics have played a role in personnel decisions a million times over. Just in Boston sports during the City of Champions era, there have been plenty of rumors of star athletes being shipped out of town with little to no return on the trade, just to get rid of them because of who they were banging. And it was just four years ago the Celtics fired a head coach who had just led them to the NBA Finals because of who he was riding the F-Train with. 

But it has to be infinitely more complex math to manage a team when your star players are running around scissoring each other and your opponents. That might have happened in men's sports too, just as a Law of Averages thing. Maybe Cap Anson and Napoleon Lajoie were running off on romantic retreats together to some cabin in the woods. (Note: I just pulled two random names out of the baseball database in my brain. I'm not suggesting anything about these two men's orientation or private lives. I ask their estates not to sue my employers or come after me.) But since it seems to be way more widespread in the WNBA and Australian cricket, it begs the question of just what kind of a nightmare it is for GMs and club presidents having to navigate the tricky waters of all those romantic entanglements. 

In fact, it staggers the imagination. Every time you go to acquire a player, you must have to check around to see if she's got an ex on your roster she has bad blood with. If you try to trade someone, you must have to check to see if there's a GM willing to give you more ROI in the deal because she's dating someone on their team who's more likely to sign a team-friendly deal to share a locker room with her girlfriend. And consider the ethics of having one of your hottest players recruit a free agent with suggestions there might be … non-monetary benefits? … of signing with you instead of somewhere else. I'm sure Thirst Trapping is a moral gray area. But human nature is what it is. The heart wants what the heart wants. 

What I'm getting at is that it has to be like quantum physics to calculate all the factors that must go into building a team in the W. It makes competing in the NBA look like child's play. All that said, you keep doing your thing, NaLyssa. It sounds like it's your league, and the rest of the ladies are just playing in it.