Following Enes Kanter Freedom’s ejection from Sunday’s game between the Indiana Fever and Chicago Sky after a verbal altercation with Sky guard Natasha Cloud during the third quarter, the WNBA has issued its strongest statement yet on the off-court storylines dominating the league.
In a statement given to Colin Salao of Front Office Sports, the WNBA called Freedom’s recent antics, which include “declaring” for the WNBA Draft after claiming to identify as a woman, “publicity stunts” and said that it is “not going to give oxygen to efforts designed to mock the league or use this topic to demean and marginalize others.”
The league continued that it “will not allow outside pressure or manufactured controversy to dictate league processes.”
The WNBA has faced an onslaught of attention from right-wing media in recent weeks following comments made by Fever player Sophie Cunningham in which she expressed support for excluding transgender women from women’s sports. Reaction to those comments eventually led Freedom, a former NBA player, to claim he now identifies as a woman and intends to declare for the upcoming WNBA Draft.
However ridiculous the circumstances, they have led many on the political right to scrutinize the language in the WNBA’s current collective bargaining agreement, which does not directly define gender eligibility requirements beyond stating that players must be a “woman.”
Absent any sort of formal statement from the league, right-wing commentators continued to act as if Freedom identifying as a woman was sufficient for him to become eligible for the WNBA.
Many have been critical of the league for not coming out harder against the outlandish discourse, instead letting it fester and eventually bubble over into an incident like Freedom’s ejection on Sunday. Fever coach Stephanie White, however, is placing at least some blame on the media itself for breathing life into the nonsense.
During a press conference following the Fever’s win over the Sky on Sunday, White suggested the press was at least partly to blame for the storylines getting out of control.
“I think it’s important that people like you guys in this room don’t give it any gas, right? It’s a social media thing,” White said.
With the league coming out with a statement characterizing Freedom’s actions for what they are- a publicity stunt- perhaps this story can finally die, and the rest of the media can move on and focus on the stretch run of the regular season.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.