Ex-NBA player Enes Kanter ejected from WNBA game after confronting player

Former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom was ejected from a WNBA game in Chicago after confronting player Natasha Cloud. Kanter, who has declared his candidacy for the 2027 WNBA draft, wore a shirt with the word 'Woman' on it and faced Cloud with open arms in the third quarter as the player approached him, visibly annoyed.

Security escorted Kanter out of the Wintrust Arena as the game continued, which the Indiana Fever won 113-90, with Caitlin Clark scoring 37 points and 10 assists. Kanter has been leveraging the current cultural debate surrounding the participation of transgender athletes in the WNBA and the league's ambiguous rules.

The WNBA's rules state that "only female players can compete in the WNBA," but they do not specify how this condition is defined or explicitly reference gender identity or sex assigned at birth for eligibility. Kanter, who previously played for teams like the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks, officially announced his candidacy for the WNBA draft, fueling the growing controversy over the issue.

This incident follows other recent controversies in the WNBA, including the throwing of sex toys onto courts in Los Angeles and Chicago. Cloud commented on the broader issue, stating, "This says more about the internal problems of this person than about anything of a collective group. For the men who throw (these sex toys), this also says that you are very weak and says a lot about what you think of women. But we are not interested."

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This says more about the internal problems of this person than about anything of a collective group. For the men who throw (these sex toys), this also says that you are very weak and says a lot about what you think of women. But we are not interested.