Why Did Kysre Gondrezick Attend Celtics’ Championship Parade?

Why did Chicago Sky guard Kysre Gondrezick attend the Boston Celtics’ championship parade on Friday? Was she just there to support a fellow Mountaineer or for another reason?

As images and video of the madness in Boston began to circulate all over social media, people started to notice Gondrezick sitting in one of the floats. From there, speculation grew to her being there as a guest of her new boyfriend Jaylen Brown.

Chicago Sky forward Kysre Gondrezick was seen with Jaylen Brown at the Celtics championship parade 👀#WNBA #Celtics pic.twitter.com/pH9GO62sLS

— TimeoutSPORTS__ (@TimeoutSPORTS3) June 21, 2024

Not to say she wasn’t also happy to see another WVU product in Joe Mazzulla lead the Celtics to an historic championship as a head coach, but their Mountaineer connection wasn’t likely the driving force of her appearance.

WNBA’s Kysre Gondrezick partying with Jaylen Brown at the Celtics’ championship parade pic.twitter.com/5L601Vnf9x

— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) June 21, 2024

This only continues Gondrezick’s ability to get noticed this year despite seeing minimal time on the floor for her team. Gondrezick’s pregame outfits have been going viral with comments from fans about her prospects as a model if a career in professional basketball doesn’t work out.

Former WVU Star Kysre Gondrezick Turning Heads in Her Return to WNBA

After taking a break from the WNBA, Gondrezick signed with the Chicago Sky just before the start of the 2024 season, Gondrezick has only appeared in one game so far, scoring two points and adding a rebound and an assist in 3:06 of time.

Selected No. 4 overall by the Indiana Fever in the 2021 draft, Gondrezick was waived by the team in January of 2022. She played in 19 games for the Fever, averaging 1.9 points, one rebound and 0.9 assists in 9.1 minutes per-game as a rookie. Gondrezick’s best game came on May 30 in a loss in Las Vegas, where she tallied eight points on 3 of 4 shooting, along with three assists and a steal in 15 minutes of action.

Gondrezick stopped playing with the Fever in mid-July of 2021, last appearing in a game for them on July 11 of that year, where she saw two minutes of playing time in a win over the Atlanta Dream. At the time, the team said Gondrezick was stepping away for “personal reasons.” In a tweet in November, Gondrezick said her “mental health was at high risk” and she “lost sight” of the “fun in the game” of basketball after the sudden death of her father Grant, 57, who played in the NBA with the Suns and Clippers in the 1980s.

“I realize now that prioritizing my mental health was the most important lesson of all to move past unlearned lessons that caused continued pain and trauma,” Gondrezick wrote as a statement on social media.

Gondrezick was a two-time All-Big 12 selection for Mike Carey’s Mountaineers, playing three seasons in Morgantown after transferring in from Michigan. The native of Benton Harbor, Michigan – where she recently had her high school jersey retired – finished her WVU career ranking fourth all-time in career scoring average with 17.14 points per-game.

As a senior for West Virginia in the 2020-21 campaign, Gondrezick was an All-Big 12 First Team selection and an honorable mention All-American after averaging 19.5 points, 4.5 assists and 2.9 rebounds per-game while shooting 42.1% from the floor and 36.4% from three-point range. She was fifth in the nation in minutes played (1,046) and ranked 28^th in offensive win shares (5.8), according to HerHoopStats.

Despite several injuries down the stretch of the season, Gondrezick helped the Mountaineers appear in the Big 12 title game and in the second round of the NCAA tournament. WVU was ranked as high as No. 17 in the AP Top 25 poll in the 2020-21 season.

Gondrezick had a year of collegiate eligibility remaining due to an NCAA COVID-era ruling, but she left WVU and declared for the WNBA Draft. She was selected 25 spots higher than what ESPN’s mock draft projected.