After inflaming a culture war and causing her teammates and colleagues to be bombarded with hypothetical questions for weeks due to her transphobic comments published in a national media outlet, Sophie Cunningham wants to stick to sports. "I'm going to let people just do the speaking for themselves, but for me, I want to get back to basketball," she said last Wednesday. If this past week has been her trying to get back to basketball, she might not ever catch up to it.
Saturday's Fever-Sky game will keep Cunningham in the greater news cycle, albeit for a reason more germane to her sport. Late in the first quarter, Cunningham went up for a layup on a fast break, and Chicago's DiJonai Carrington clobbered her across the face, sending the Fever guard tumbling to the floor. Cunningham then popped up before she was corralled by her teammate Makayla Timpson in a classic "Hold me back" situation. The officiating crew reviewed the play and tagged Carrington with a flagrant 2 foul, automatically ejecting her from the game.
While Carrington had recently retweeted praise for Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve's "Trans kids belong" T-shirt, worn last week in response to Cunningham's original comments, it'd be presumptuous to conclude that this foul was done purely out of solidarity. Carrington plays like this on defense regardless of who's driving to the rim. When she was on the Dallas Wings last season, she clipped Skylar Diggins on a pretty similar play; in another game around that time, she brought the hammer down on Jessica Shepard. On those occasions, Carrington was assessed a flagrant 1 and allowed to remain in the game, but her arm definitely caught more of Cunningham's mug on Saturday, so she was tossed early as Indiana beat Chicago, 90-86. As the rest of the game unfolded, Carrington used her Threads account to post "WHITE PRIVILEGE" and tagged the Fever; she also tweeted "8/23" with a smiley emoji, referencing the next matchup between the two teams.
Carrington didn't speak to press after the game, though Cunningham did. She suggested that the foul might have been an extension of some beef between the Fever and Connecticut Sun last season, when Cunningham flagrantly fouled Jacy Sheldon toward the end of the game. Although Carrington wasn't playing for the Sun in 2025, Sheldon is her teammate on the Sky now. Cunningham still played dumb in her reaction. Some of her remarks, via The Athletic:
“From my point of view, I mean, clearly I think it was unnecessary,” Cunningham said after the game. “I’ve never really spoken to [Carrington] and have no beef with her. But I guess she has some pent-up stuff. So get your shit off. That’s fine. I can take it.”
[...]
“[Carrington] has no reason to be doing any of that,” Cunningham said. “Like, I don’t even know her. She wasn’t even on the team when all that was going on. But I do think when people play the Fever, we’re nationally televised, there’s a lot of eyes on us. People just want attention. And that’s her just trying to get attention.”
Take it from an expert at getting attention. The first part of ESPN's July 21 profile highlighted how the takedown of Sheldon led to an influx of popularity and lucrative opportunities for Cunningham. Hallie Grossman diligently framed her as the Fever's reluctant but designated tough, standing up when necessary for her more famous teammates. "I guess when you take a girl's head off," Cunningham told Hallie Grossman, "people love that stuff."
Well, only sometimes. When Cunningham plays dirty and gets tossed, she gets offered to endorse a security camera. A right-wing outlet like Outkick gushes about her in a headline: "Caitlin Clark's Enforcer Sophie Cunningham Is A Black Belt Who Used To Bloody Her Own Sister." (An excerpt: "Cunningham skillfully grabbed the back of Sheldon's neck. She was prepared for anything that was going to come her way.") She eventually receives an ESPN profile that buys into her bullshit, and attributes whatever she does or says as merely a part of some unsolvable controversy that can't ever be called out by polite media for what it actually is. No wonder she's chummy with Dave Portnoy.
When Carrington commits a similar play and receives a well-earned ejection (and an incoming fine, same as Cunningham last year), it's not enough. The very same right-wing outlet calls for further punishment to send a message. Idiots compare it to a crime and declare the league is in crisis because the black player fouled the white player. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert is urged to step in and restore order, even when Stephanie White, Cunningham's own coach, deems what Carrington did nothing more than "a hard foul." Everyone willing to open their eyes can see what's happening here, the same as it is when any clip of a foul on Clark is slowed down and blown out of proportion. The bigots are never going to be appeased, but they will gladly make themselves at home in the equivocation offered by any mealy-mouthed response from a commissioner, coach, or player.
Then again, maybe it's better to focus on the on-court results. Carrington, in her four minutes of game time before the ejection, scored eight points. Cunningham finished with three points in 17 minutes and a minus-28, the worst single-game plus-minus in a win in league history. In her past three games, she's scored a total of eight points on 2-of-7 shooting across 68 minutes. She'd better go catch up with basketball, because it's already halfway down the road.
