{"id":115733,"date":"2025-09-03T03:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T03:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/115733\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T03:01:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T03:01:07","slug":"sophie-cunningham-gets-real-about-angel-reeses-wnba-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/115733\/","title":{"rendered":"Sophie Cunningham Gets Real About Angel Reese&#8217;s WNBA Impact"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5c\">If you follow women&#8217;s basketball, you&#8217;re familiar with the rivalry between Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese and Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5f\">You&#8217;re familiar with how Reese taunted Clark in the final moments of the 2023 NCAA national championship game, you&#8217;re familiar with how that went insanely viral and catapulted both players into a new stratosphere of stardom, you&#8217;re familiar with how Clark got revenge on Reese and the LSU Tigers in the NCAA tournament one season later, and you&#8217;re familiar with his this rivalry has not only translated to the WNBA, but added several fascinating layers across their two seasons in the league.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5i\">If you follow women&#8217;s basketball, you&#8217;re also familiar with how Sophie <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/onsi\/womens-fastbreak\/news\/sophie-cunningham-s-bikini-knee-brace-dance-video-goes-viral-01k45xw1zw2e\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cunningham&#8217;s stardom has skyrocketed<\/a> as a result of her relationship with Caitlin Clark. However, the relationship that Cunningham has with Clark is much different than the relationship Reese has with her. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/01k46mbccve70j4s7sz9.jpg\" alt=\"Injured Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham (8) and guard Caitlin Clark (22) react on June 7, 2025\" title=\"Injured Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham (8) and guard Caitlin Clark (22) react on June 7, 2025\" width=\"4000\" height=\"2250\" class=\"undefined w-full w-full blur-[5px]\" q:id=\"5r\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Jun 7, 2025; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Injured Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham (8) and guard Caitlin Clark (22) react from the bench during the first half of a WNBA game against the Chicago Sky at United Center. Mandatory Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images | Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5v\">And given how protective Cunningham appears to be of Clark, perhaps it wouldn&#8217;t surprise anybody to hear Cunningham hesitant to give Reese her flowers in any regard. <\/p>\n<p>Sophie Cunningham Speaks to Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese&#8217;s WNBA Impact<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"61\">However, while Cunningham was going on about what Caitlin Clark has done for the WNBA during a September 2 episode of her Show Me Something podcast, Cunningham also gave Reese her well-deserved praise.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"64\">&#8220;I&#8217;m just being real and truthful that [Clark] has brought millions, millions \u2014\u00a0I wouldn&#8217;t be surprised if it was billions \u2014 of eyes to the W[NBA]. And on to women&#8217;s sports,&#8221; Cunningham said on the podcast. &#8220;She is a Kobe Bryant. And that&#8217;s how Diana [Taurasi] was, that&#8217;s how Sue [Bird] was, we&#8217;ve had these types of people, but this is just bigger, because the media platform is bigger than it ever has been.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"67\">She then added, &#8220;I don&#8217;t have an ego, so I&#8217;m just able to tell the truth. If was someone else, I&#8217;d be like, yeah. Angel Reese, she has also brought millions of fans,&#8221; Cunningham continued. &#8220;I think Caitlin has brought way more, but I also think [Angel] has too.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6a\">&#8220;I&#8217;m just not naive. And I might be blonde, but I&#8217;m not f****** dumb,&#8221; Cunningham added. &#8220;Give the girls their flowers. They deserve it.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-12\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6h\">Of course, Cunningham is correct in saying that Clark has brought more fans to the WNBA than Reese. But the bottom line is that the two don&#8217;t need to be compared because both 23-year-olds have been massive contributors to the growth and prosperity of women&#8217;s basketball.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-13\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6k\">And it&#8217;s cool to Cunningham recognize Reese&#8217;s role in that.<\/p>\n<p>Recommended Reading:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you follow women&#8217;s basketball, you&#8217;re familiar with the rivalry between Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese and Indiana&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-115733","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}