WNBA Embarrasses Itself Yet Again — Bars Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White

The WNBA has ruled former NBA players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White ineligible to play. It did so while scolding them for making the league look ridiculous.

Front Office Sports reported the decision from league sources. Freedom and White had publicly floated entering the women’s draft. Freedom also showed up at a game, sat with fans, and ended up in a shouting match with Chicago Sky guard Natasha Cloud before security removed him.

The league called those moves “publicity stunts.” It said it is “not going to give oxygen to efforts designed to mock the league or use this topic to demean and marginalize others.” It added that it “will not allow outside pressure or manufactured controversy to dictate league processes.”

Enes Kanter GOT INTO IT with a WNBA player and was KICKED OUT the arena 😳 pic.twitter.com/DCBhO8ZPhD

— BrickCenter (@BrickCenter_) August 24, 2026

What the statement did not say is the simple fact: they are men.

That omission is the story. If the WNBA can bar two adult males because they are male, it has admitted sex is real and decisive in basketball. If it cannot say that out loud, it is still trying to keep a political line that contradicts the roster.

Freedom described the arena confrontation in blunt terms. After he celebrated a Sophie Cunningham three, he said Cloud came at him. “She’s not gonna sleep with you,” he recalled her saying. He answered that he was not there for that. “I’m just here to protect women and support her.”

The league now wants the episode treated as a stunt, not a test. The test remains. A women’s league that cannot define “woman” in public still has to decide who is eligible in private.

Freedom and White are out. The unanswered question is the one the WNBA keeps dodging.