Oh, how The Athletic has fallen, though this was predictable when The New York Times took it over. This isn’t sports journalism — this is whining like a little you-know-what because the WNBA has talent that is drawing in new fans, but the new exciting players are not black, gay, or both. When the league has a chance to gain relevance, paranoia, woke antics, and women-hating-women sideshows derail it. The front office not being able to define what a woman is, which did happen this summer, derails it. The brain fart over transgender athletes derails it. These aren’t hard questions, and they failed. 

Meanwhile, Sophie Cunningham, Caitlin Clark’s teammate and de facto bodyguard on the court for the Indiana Fever, is now viewed as too “turbulent” for Clark, or something. She’s too “combustible.” I don’t know what that means; the article never made any sense. If anything, A’Ja Wilson cussing and confronting a fan in his seat was more chaotic than anything Cunningham did. That went viral a bunch of times for all the right reasons: the finger-pointing and singing at an Indianapolis country bar, among other things. If that’s “combustible” material, then this league will never go anywhere with players, fans, and vet writers being this soft and weak (via The Athletic):

Cunningham is too combustible, her takes too turbulent to be paired with Caitlin Clark. On the same team, it’s just too much. Clark, by her presence alone, already can’t get through a season without being thrown into gutter debates that pit White against Black; hate that appears even in the DMs of her own teammates. Cunningham, with only a few words, introduced new divisions.

Back in July, Cunningham said something in an ESPN article about protecting girls in sports from transgender athletes. This naturally set off alarms for the kind of audience that loves its culture wars served with a side of sport. So, when that base discovered all kinds of new and fun ways to disrupt the most profitable women’s professional league, which is also powered by the LGBTQIA community, they found their new hero. Sophie was her name.

The same Sophie who had clotheslined Jacy Sheldon last season, she says, to exact vengeance for Clark. And the same one who had stepped in to defend Clark again this season and had instantly become a meme when she pointed at DeWanna Bonner during a confrontation and held that point for a ridiculous amount of time. The point solidified Cunningham as a protective teammate. The kind of teammate Clark needed, even if Cunningham’s effectiveness on the court didn’t shine on a traditional stat sheet.

My lord, I don’t even watch the WNBA, and I know the league's issues go beyond Cunningham's on- and off-court activities, which are also innocuous. What the hell is this hit piece? There are words, but I don’t think the people in this insufferable woke camp even know what they mean. Athletic, there’s still time to suffocate this article with a pillow. 

I’ve never read such a weak argument for kicking someone off a team. The overreach is astounding. Talk about getting something so easy so wrong, so eloquently. It was totally abominable and unnecessary. When you think about it, what exactly was the point of this piece?