Stephen A. Smith calls out ‘classless’ Enes Kanter for agitating WNBA players: ‘You got no business doing that’

Stephen A. Smith recently posed the ridiculous scenario of NBA players transitioning to the WNBA, but even he probably didn’t think Enes Kanter would be desperate enough for attention to accept the challenge.

After recently declaring his eligibility for the 2027 WNBA Draft, Kanter sat courtside during Sunday’s Chicago Sky game against the Indiana Fever wearing a shirt that read “Woman” on it. Kanter caught the attention of Sky guard Natasha Cloud, with the former NBA center proceeding to engage by stepping toward the court before being escorted out of the building by security.

“What Enes Kanter did, although he had every right to do it, and although it’s clearly to bring attention to the unfairness of not specifically defining what a woman is in a collective bargaining agreement and as a result, somebody who is transgender can wake up and say, ‘I’m a female and I want to participate in the NBA’ according to the language of the law, you could actually get away with it, and that needs to be clarified,” Smith said on his YouTube show.

Right-wing media has celebrated Kanter in recent weeks as the WNBA finds itself at the center of the transgender athlete conversation in the wake of widespread reaction to comments made by Indiana’s Sophie Cunningham, who told ESPN she wants to “protect young girls” in sports “against biological men.” Smith forecast Kanter’s antics several weeks ago on his SiriusXM Radio show, defending Cunningham by noting he doesn’t want to see NBA players transition to the WNBA.

But Kanter’s faux quest to play professional women’s basketball isn’t meant to bring attention to the WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement, it’s meant to bring attention to himself. And while Smith believes Kanter has a point, he also believes the former NBA player has gone about making that point the wrong way.

“Enes Kanter was very wrong,” Smith admitted. “It was a classless thing for him to do. Because the ladies that are playing don’t have anything to do with this. The league does, it’s collective bargaining agreement may…but the actual ladies that are involved, have nothing to do with this and they don’t deserve to be agitated the way he was clearly willing to do at the game. It wasn’t just about him standing. He was just about to step to her. You got no business doing that. That was excessive.”

“Enes Kanter, I believe went too far by showing up in attendance with that shirt on,” Smith continued. “Show some class, bro. That’s not the ladies that’s doing this…Enes Kanter was wrong for being in attendance for that game and being antagonistic to those ladies. They don’t deserve that. There’s other ways he could have made his message felt. But he’s not wrong for illustrating that men don’t need to be competing in women’s sports.”

Kanter is wrong for attempting to make men competing in professional women’s basketball out to be a legitimate issue facing the WNBA, when in reality, it’s not. His illegitimate attempt at declaring for the WNBA Draft doesn’t change the fact that no transgender athlete has attempted to join a WNBA team. This is not an issue the WNBA is facing; it’s an issue conservative media is fabricating.