The usual summer “break” doesn’t apply for Deja Kelly.
The fifth-year North Carolina transfer guard has packed her summers and offseasons with business meetings, events and training since high school. Though this past summer didn’t involve an internship at SLAM magazine – which she completed last summer – or a trip to Mexico to play for Team USA at the FIBA Women’s AmeriCup as in 2023, it didn’t leave a whole lot of room for relaxation, either.
Kelly said it was the longest summer of her life, and understandably so. The three-time All-ACC guard committed to play for Oregon shortly before she graduated in May, then moved to Los Angeles to work out until July while also engaging in personal business meetings. In June, Kelly took a trip to New York to shadow ESPN analyst Andraya Carter, squeezed in a trip home to Texas, followed by another trip to the NBA Summer League in early July to network.
Kelly then went to Paris to watch the Summer Olympics for 10 days, traveled back to L.A. to work out for two weeks, and finally arrived in Eugene to begin her final collegiate season as a Duck.
That’s all par for the course for Kelly, someone who has anticipated taking advantage of every opportunity as a student-athlete since before athletes could profit from their name, image, and likeness.
“Whenever people ask me for advice or whatever it is, I try to tell them: Do not put all your eggs in one basket,” Kelly said. “Anything can happen at any time. So, it’s good to branch out and meet new people, network, build a foundation or whatever else it is. Even if it’s still through basketball, whether you want to do something still involved with the sport, I think it’s still good to network and build those relationships outside of just playing and practice every day.”
A McDonald’s All-American out of Texas
Kelly received her first scholarship offer to play college basketball in sixth grade.
By the time she wrapped up her high school career she had amassed 3,216 points, earned three all-state honors and four all-region selections while finishing up at Duncanville High School in Texas. A McDonald’s All-American and Gatorade State Player of the Year, Kelly has been around the game of basketball her whole life.
It started with a family dedicated to basketball. Her mother, Theresa Nunn, coached Kelly growing up and played collegiately at Valley City State University. Her father, Darren Kelly, played at the University of Texas.
Growing up in San Antonio, Kelly went to Silver Stars (now the Las Vegas Aces) games regularly and watched current Washington Mystic Ariel Atkins play in state championship games at Duncanville.
From a young age, Kelly’s mom knew if her daughter wanted to be a WNBA player, she’d need to see it first.
“Just being able to visualize it and be there in person has always, in my opinion, been the best way to start chasing your dreams and your goals,” Nunn said. “So I think she’s loved every bit of it just seeing people she knew and people she could possibly be playing with in the future now.”
Kelly set clear goals for herself throughout her youth, telling Nunn that she would be a McDonald’s All-American in third grade. And by her freshman year of high school, she knew she wanted to invest time pursing a broadcasting career when her playing days are over.
Though she considered schools like Texas, Texas A&M and Notre Dame, and came to Eugene on a visit with Oregon coach Kelly Graves, Kelly committed to North Carolina in 2020, in part, because of its broadcast journalism program.
‘The ball will stop bouncing at some point’: Deja Kelly knew she wanted to be multifaceted, versatile in college
Before NIL was even a rumor, Kelly knew she wanted to take advantage of the unique opportunities she would get as a college athlete. A star in the social media space before she even arrived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Kelly’s star only grew on the East Coast.
When the NCAA passed legislation that allowed college athletes to profit from NIL, Kelly jumped at the opportunity, as well.
“That’s super important because I do know that the ball will stop bouncing at whenever that happens to be,” Kelly said. “But I think just me having kind of everything in line and even taking advantage of investing in different businesses, partnering with different companies that I know can be a long-term partnership and continue to network and build that relationship.”
Kelly said that mindset also came from her mom, who stressed to all the players she coached to find something they were passionate about that didn’t involve playing basketball.
For Kelly, that was broadcasting.
When she decided she wanted to pursue broadcasting after her playing career, she practiced postgame interviews with her mom at home. She tuned in to games and paid closer attention to pre and postgame interviews and halftime shows.
Though making the WNBA and sticking around is a long-term goal for Kelly, both she and Nunn know how hard it is to consistently make a WNBA roster – the most competitive professional league in the world with just 144 total roster spots and 12 teams as of 2024, but with two more expansion teams on the way.
“The average WNBA career is five years,” Nunn said. “If she’s blessed and fortunate enough, you know, to go 20 years, like to Diana Taurasi or somebody, then that’s phenomenal. But we also want to make sure that she’s layered and in all different ways.”
Kelly has a multitude of NIL endorsements, a tight circle of advisors and networked contacts to help her in her business ventures. She’s dove further into fashion and modeling and has a good head start on her side passion already as she nears the final stage of her collegiate career.
Deja Kelly sought fresh start, pro development in new system at Oregon under Kelly Graves
When Kelly entered the transfer portal following four standout seasons for the Tar Heels – including three All-ACC honors, an NCAA All-Region selection and a heavy, 15.4-point-per-game scoring load – she had a few priorities when looking at other schools.
A major factor was getting to the WNBA, something that Oregon coach Kelly Graves has excelled at in his decades’ worth of coaching experience. Look no further than the WNBA Finals this season, which featured three former Graves players in Courtney Vandersloot (Gonzaga), Sabrina Ionescu (Oregon) and Nyara Sabally (Oregon).
Kelly said she chatted with Ionescu before making her decision to transfer to Oregon for the 2024-25 season, her fifth year.
“She was super, super giving and her advice was great,” Kelly said. “She told me that ultimately it’s my race, it’s what I give into it as well, but that (Graves) is gonna be there pushing me every step of the way within these next couple months to definitely help and push me to reach my goals and help get me there.”
On top of that, Kelly said in a recent TikTok video that she was not playing with the same joy during her fourth year last season that she had in previous seasons with the Tar Heels. Carrying the bulk of the scoring load and being a face of an NCAA Tournament program year in and year out is draining, but Kelly says that made her a stronger player and person heading into her fifth season.
Kelly joins an Oregon program that is fresh off its worst season in Graves’ 11-year tenure in Eugene. Just six players return from a team that went 11-21 and just 2-16 in Pac-12 play. She’s one of seven transfers and nine total newcomers to a brand-new roster hoping to compete in the Big Ten after the Pac-12’s collapse last year.
She’s heard the noise from fans that have questioned why she joined the Ducks. She said her exclusion from the Big Ten’s preseason all-conference list was “BS.” With basketball season here, Kelly’s sole focus is on bringing the Ducks back to where she and the team believes they belong.
“It just adds fuel to the fire for me,” she said. “I think I’ve definitely proven myself, so I don’t have to prove myself to really anybody. I just try to say that in the most humble way, of course, because I’m not gonna be loud about it, bark about it, whatever. We’ll let the game do the talking and I know the whole team is hungry for to make a statement. You can see it in practice with how competitive we are with each other.”
Kelly said she wasn’t alone among her teammates when some fans questioned why she transferred to Oregon and that the whole team has adopted an underdog mentality.
Though they’ll have to learn to play with each other quickly and build a rhythm as the season progresses, she’s confident in herself, and in the group.
“Oregon has a worldwide brand,” Kelly said. “They wanted to be a part of that to help put the women’s basketball team back to where it was and a national or worldwide brand. So, I think that everyone has that edge.”
The Ducks begin their 2024-25 campaign Monday against California Baptist at Matthew Knight Arena.
Alec Dietz covers University of Oregon football, volleyball, women’s basketball and baseball for The Register-Guard. You may reach him at adietz@registerguard.com and you can follow him on X @AlecDietz.
