New Atlanta Dream owner Renee Montgomery defends the choice to not cut ties with players upon first seeing viral brawl video
- A video of Atlanta Dream players fist-fighting outside of a day club has gone viral in recent days.
- Two players - Crystal Bradford and All-Star Courtney Williams - are not welcome to rejoin the team.
The Atlanta Dream are embroiled in yet another controversy, and now, the WNBA franchise's ownership is weighing in on the scandal.
Renee Montgomery - a former Dream star who joined the team's new ownership group earlier this year - defended the franchise's response to a situation that saw a number of the team's players brawling outside of a day club early in the WNBA season. A video of the altercation that went viral this week showed Atlanta players - including Crystal Bradford and the team's lone 2021 All-Star, Courtney Williams - throwing several punches at a group of women in broad daylight.
On Monday, a source close to the team told Insider that franchise leadership was made aware of the melee shortly after it took place in May and handled the situation internally. But only after the fight clip gained traction some five months after it was filmed - and Williams briefly posted a video to YouTube with her side of the story - did the organization inform Williams and Bradford that they would not be re-signed to Atlanta's roster "under any circumstances," The Next's Howard Megdal reported Tuesday night.
The Fam Sports Agency CEO Marcus Crenshaw - who represents both players - confirmed as much during an Instagram Live interview with Girls Talk Sports TV's Khristina Williams on Tuesday night. Crenshaw questioned why the franchise only took action after the video became public, rather than when franchise leadership learned about the fight five months earlier.
"I spoke to Court," Crenshaw said. "She knows like, damn bro, the team didn't even do anything, so I didn't even think - it was a brawl, we got out of it, nothing happened. If the team didn't do anything, she was like, 'Aw man, I didn't think this YouTube video was gonna do anything.'"
Montgomery - who doubles as a WNBA analyst for ESPN - addressed the team's decision to delay action against Williams and Bradford while covering a playoff game between the Connecticut Sun and Chicago Sky Wednesday night. During halftime, the former point guard explained that she and her fellow Dream owners "only understood the magnitude of the situation when we saw that the fuller clip" that went viral in recent days.
"We saw a clip in May that was 10 to 15 seconds long, with no context," Montgomery said. "And Coach [Mike] Petersen [the team's interim coach at the time], he talked to the players involved, and they told us that, they assured us that it was in self-defense. So we wanted to believe our players. And so, we chose to believe our players, and ultimately didn't have any disciplinary actions."
"This doesn't feel good for anyone, no one wants to feel this way," she added. "But we always want to lean in to believe in our players and believe in women, to even take it a step further."
Montgomery also added that franchise leadership needs to be careful discussing the situation because "we're dealing with a process that's going to involve the league and the WNBPA." But she ended the discussion of the situation in Atlanta by sharing her vision for what she hopes the team will look like in the future:
"We want to build a foundation of accountability, we want to build a foundation of integrity," Montgomery said. "But we also still want to continue to believe our players. So I don't want this one instance to be, 'Oh, we're not going to believe anymore.' We have to believe players. We have to believe women. And we're going to continue to do that."
Check out her full comments on the situation below: