Y’all already know the WNBA has been the center of attention this summer, and Sunday night in Chicago things got extra real. Former NBA big man Enes Kanter Freedom, who declared himself eligible for the WNBA draft this month saying he identifies as a woman, found himself escorted out of Wintrust Arena during the Fever-Sky matchup after a heated back-and-forth with Chicago guard Natasha Cloud left security no choice but to walk him out.
So what exactly happened? Well, Kanter, who’s 6’10” and impossible to miss, was posted up courtside rocking a black T-shirt that read “WOMAN noun. adult human female.” Late in the third quarter, with the Fever up big, Cloud scored a tough bucket inside, hyped it up with a chest bump from teammate Aicha Coulibaly, then turned around and walked straight in Kanter’s direction, yelling and pointing the whole way. Kanter stood up, threw his arms out, and took a step toward the court before security and a group of Sky players jumped in the middle to keep it from popping off completely. Moments later, officials had seen enough and Kanter was escorted out the building, holding his shirt up on the way to the lobby.
Enes Kanter GOT INTO IT with a WNBA player and was KICKED OUT the arena
pic.twitter.com/DCBhO8ZPhD— BrickCenter (@BrickCenter_) August 24, 2026
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Now, this didn’t come out of nowhere. Kanter and fellow former NBA player Royce White both announced this month that they’re declaring themselves eligible for the WNBA draft, saying they identify as women, a move that’s widely being read as a pointed statement in the middle of the league’s ongoing debate over transgender athletes in women’s sports. That debate got turned all the way up after Fever guard Sophie Cunningham told ESPN last month that she wants to protect young girls’ locker rooms from biological men competing in their sport.
Kanter’s been rocking with Cunningham’s camp ever since, even pulling up to a small rally supporting her outside the arena before Sunday’s game.
Sky head coach Tyler Marsh kept it classy when reporters asked him to weigh in postgame, saying “if you come to a game, you should probably come to enjoy the basketball.” Fever coach Stephanie White downplayed the whole thing to reporters too, basically telling everybody in the room not to feed into it because it’s a social media moment more than anything else.
Kanter hopped on social media afterward and let everybody know he felt like he got kicked out, framing his ejection as a consequence of supporting women… It’s not the first time he and Cloud have clashed publicly either, the two have history going back to 2023 when they went back and forth online over her comments about the U.S. government.
Now here’s where it gets even more layered, Kanter’s already gone on record saying he plans to formally push his WNBA draft eligibility further, essentially trying to force the league to spell out clearer rules on who qualifies to play. The WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement, signed back in March, states only players who are women are eligiblex but it doesn’t define what that means, and the league hasn’t put out a public policy addressing transgender eligibility. So this fight? It’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
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