Add Sophie Cunningham to the list of prominent WNBA players voicing their displeasure with the direction of the league.<\/p>\n
The Indiana Fever forward spoke at her team\u2019s end-of-season availability and echoed the sentiments of Napheesa Collier and other players.<\/p>\n
Cunningham on WNBA leadership: ‘They don’t know s** about basketball’ Sophie Cunningham echoed Napheesa Collier’s remarks towards the WNBA on Thursday, calling out league leadership and the lack of accountability they’re taking. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just tired of our league,\u201d the 29-year-old Cunningham said. \u201cThey need to step up and be better. Our leadership, from top to bottom, needs to be held accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prefacing her remarks that she intended to be diplomatic, Cunningham didn\u2019t pull any punches.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that there are a lot of people in a position of power in the WNBA, who – they might be great business people, but they don\u2019t know s— about basketball. And that\u2019s gotta change.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cunningham\u2019s remarks come on the heels of Collier\u2019s scathing remarks towards league leadership, including commissioner Cathy Engelbert, on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the best players in the world. We have the best fans in the world. But right now we have the worst leadership in the world,\u201d Collier said in a four-minute statement. \u201c[Officiating] has now reached levels of inconsistency that plague our sport and undermine the integrity in which it operates,\u201d Collier told reporters. \u201cThey ignore the issues that everyone inside the game is begging to be fixed \u2014 that is negligence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cunningham cited a poor level of officiating as a particular point of contention.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we\u2019re competing at the highest level and it\u2019s like a battlefield out there, when we\u2019re agreeing on the court because of how awful the officials are, like that\u2019s saying something,\u201d Cunningham said. \u201cListen to us. We\u2019re not going to come for your heads, but I think there\u2019s room for improvement, to change the criteria, when the whole league is asking for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
With an Oct. 31 deadline to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement, Cunningham says a work stoppage is on the horizon.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a potential lockout,\u201d Cunningham said. \u201cI promise you we aren\u2019t going to play until they give us what we deserve. That\u2019s kinda where it\u2019s headed unfortunately, which would be the dumbest basketball decision, business-wise ever, considering the momentum the W has.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before that, the WNBA Finals begin on Friday night with the Las Vegas Aces hosting the Phoenix Mercury in Game 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Add Sophie Cunningham to the list of prominent WNBA players voicing their displeasure with the direction of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[712,49,48,78995,82,630],"class_list":["post-185809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-indiana-fever-sports-basketball-team-team-statscom-158","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185809","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=185809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}