By R.L. Bynum
GREENSBORO — Deja Kelly has played many times at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex, but on Thursday she was in front of many screaming kids on camp day in the more intimate Novant Health Fieldhouse.
“I feel good,” she said after her Charlotte Crown’s 85–75 victory over the Greensboro Groove. “It’s good to be out here playing. Good to be back in the state of North Carolina, so that’s always fun. This is a great league. It’s been a lot of fun.”
Instead of playing in an ACC tournament, she’s taking the next step in her professional basketball journey as the leader of the Upshot League in scoring (17.7) and assists (4.2).
She dons No. 2 instead of No. 25 she wore at UNC and Oregon, but the mid‑range jumper, long fingernails (one of which she tore during the game) and the sleeve around her left leg, but not the right leg, were familiar.
The goal still is to make a WNBA roster. For now, being on a team with the Crown nickname seems perfect for a player who always has embraced the queen persona, even wearing a tiara at Late Night one year at the Smith Center.
“Isn’t that cool? It’s a match made in heaven,” Kelly said. “It’s been great. The Charlotte Crown. We thought it was fitting, but Charlotte just made sense.”
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She said the inaugural season has had “a lot of moving pieces,” but added, “we’re starting to play together, so it’s been really fun.”
There was a hint of a rivalry, with Kelly collecting 12 points and five assists and former N.C. State star Diamond Johnson netting 22 points for the Groove. The two often guarding each other.
Kelly only beat Johnson’s Wolfpack teams once in four tries, but has won four of six meetings this season. Former Duke star Reigan Richardson is her Crown teammate and led the team with 25 points.
“We’ve been going against each other for years, since high school,” she said of facing Johnson. She also praised Richardson as a teammate. “Reigan, I love her game. She works so hard. She plays hard. She does a little bit of everything, and she gets out in transition. She helps us play fast, and I love passing too. She makes it go.”
Kelly says that her game has evolved a lot this summer.
“I think that was the main point of me playing in this league, just to continue to develop, continue to grow my game, and just strengthen areas that I felt like I needed to strengthen, and continue to grow as a leader, continue to grow as a lead guard,” she said.
She added that the Upshot League is “a real taste of what professional basketball would look like,” and that every play is a chance to improve.
Her season has included a season-high 32‑point outing in a 100–98 road loss on June 26 to the first‑place Jacksonville Waves and a season-high nine‑assist night in an 86–67 home win over the Savannah Steel on June 6.
Kelly said the assist numbers are the part of her game she is most proud of.
“The biggest thing I’m proud of is leading the league in assists,” she said. “That’s something that I’ve wanted to grow, and that’s why this week my main focus is to grow my assists and just really be a true lead guard.”
On Thursday she made her first four shots and scored eight first-quarter points, then shifted into distributor mode.
“If I start out being aggressive, then the defense adjusts, and I have really great players around me, so I was able to get them the ball and find them and put them in the right spots,” she said. “I don’t have to always be a scorer. The team doesn’t always need 20-plus from me, and I’m more than OK with that. I’m more than OK with being a distributor and making our team go, just with my playmaking and pushing pace.”
Kelly’s path since leaving college began with some impressive preseason games in 2025 with the Las Vegas Aces, but she was cut before the season began. She played in Athletes Unlimited earlier this year before joining the Crown.
“Being able to stay stateside, I was grateful for that opportunity,” she said of Athletes Unlimited. “Being able to play against and with other W players and show that I can hang along and can play with them, that was good.”
She said conversations with WNBA personnel influenced her decision to remain in the United States this summer rather than head overseas immediately.
“I had a few people within my team who said to wait a little bit, and I talked even with some GMs in the W who said to wait on going overseas initially,” she said.
Kelly expects to play overseas this fall, but for now she values the exposure and development the domestic leagues provide.
The style elements that followed Kelly from Chapel Hill to Oregon to her pro career remain part of her identity. That’s the story of the sleeve on her left leg.
“The style thing; yeah, it just stuck. I wore it for medical purposes [in high school]. That’s how it started, and then it just stuck,” she said.
Off the court, broadcasting has been an interest she has pursued, including working for the Big Ten Network.
“They allowed me to have opportunities while I was at Oregon, and then that led into my first year out of college,” Kelly said.
Kelly said the expansion of the WNBA will create more opportunities for her and former teammates such as Alyssa Ustby, who played in Italy last season.
“With leagues like this, this helps get more eyes on players who have been in and out of the league,” she said. “It allows players like me, like Lys, like any of my old teammates, to be able to grow our game and get more eyes, get more film. As the W continues to expand, the goal is to land a roster spot and get into a camp and then land a roster spot.”
Carolina connections helped bring Kelly to Charlotte. Her coach, Trisha Stafford‑Odom, was one of Sylvia Hatchell’s assistant coaches from 2011 to 2013.
“We talked about that a little bit [about UNC] when she first called me to come join her team,” Kelly said. “There was already that kind of familiarity, and us being able to bring that and mesh that onto the basketball court is a great dynamic that we have.”
Kelly’s focus remains on strengthening her playmaking, becoming a true lead guard, and continuing to grow.
“They want to see me be a true lead guard,” she said of feedback from WNBA personnel. “Everyone knows I can score, which is obviously a plus, and that’s intriguing to them. But just showing that I can be a true lead guard on a consistent nightly basis is important.”
Kelly’s blend of scoring, passing and leadership suggests she will remain a player to watch as she chases her WNBA dream.
Photos courtesy of Upshot League
