{"id":38950,"date":"2025-08-01T08:32:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T08:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/38950\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T08:32:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T08:32:09","slug":"fevers-sophie-cunningham-says-people-who-deny-that-caitlin-clark-is-face-of-wnba-are-literally-dumb-as-f","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/38950\/","title":{"rendered":"Fever&#8217;s Sophie Cunningham says people who deny that Caitlin Clark is face of WNBA are &#8216;literally dumb as f***&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sophie Cunningham went to bat again for Indiana Fever teammate, and WNBA superstar, Caitlin Clark Wednesday, this time on the <a data-i13n=\"cpos:1;pos:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=0jtH1N_anlU&amp;t=2640s\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:debut episode of her new podcast, &quot;Show Me Something.&quot;;cpos:1;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">debut episode of her new podcast, &#8220;Show Me Something.&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It literally pisses me off when people are like, &#8216;She&#8217;s not the face of the league.&#8217; What?&#8221; Cunningham said alongside host West Wilson, a cast member of the Bravo reality TV show &#8220;Summer House.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cunningham continued: &#8220;There&#8217;s really good, well-known people in our league. I&#8217;m not discrediting them. We have a lot of badasses in our league. Hell yeah to that. I&#8217;m all for that. But when people try to argue that she&#8217;s not the face of our league or our league would be where we&#8217;re at without her, you&#8217;re dumb as s***. You&#8217;re literally dumb as f***.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cunningham notably came to Clark&#8217;s support during a June 17 win over the Connecticut Sun. That night, Clark was <a data-i13n=\"cpos:2;pos:1\" href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/wnba\/breaking-news\/article\/watch-caitlin-clark-poked-in-eye-by-jacy-sheldon-shoved-by-marina-mabrey-sparking-scuffles-between-fever-sun-011241268.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:poked in the eye;cpos:2;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">poked in the eye<\/a> by Jacy Sheldon and ultimately knocked to the ground by another Sun guard Marina Mabrey midway through the third quarter.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>[<a data-i13n=\"cpos:3;pos:1\" href=\"https:\/\/football.fantasysports.yahoo.com\/f1\/signup\" data-ylk=\"slk:Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Football league for the 2025 NFL season;cpos:3;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Football league for the 2025 NFL season<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p>Mabrey wasn&#8217;t ejected to the dismay of Fever fans, players and coaches.<\/p>\n<p>That frustrated group included Cunningham, who <a data-i13n=\"cpos:4;pos:1\" href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/wnba\/article\/sophie-cunningham-says-her-flagrant-foul-fight-vs-sun-was-byproduct-of-wnba-refs-not-protecting-caitlin-clark-011028772.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:sent a message;cpos:4;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sent a message<\/a> with her flagrant 2 foul on Sheldon and subsequent viral melee in the final minute of the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You have seen players in our league try to toughen up Caitlin,&#8221; Cunningham, a seventh-year guard, said Wednesday on her podcast. &#8220;Even when I wasn&#8217;t on her team. I know the talks that Phoenix had in their locker room of, like, &#8216;We&#8217;re gonna show her what the W really is.&#8217; I get it to a certain extent. Every rookie coming into the league, that&#8217;s how you&#8217;re going to treat them.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But there&#8217;s just more for her. It&#8217;s her second year. Now being on her team and seeing it, I&#8217;m like, &#8216;What are people doing?&#8217; It&#8217;s just too much. I&#8217;m over it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cunningham added: &#8220;And if I&#8217;m saying it&#8217;s too much, then it&#8217;s probably too much.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>While becoming NCAA Division I&#8217;s all-time leading scorer, Clark took center stage in the women&#8217;s basketball world and then expanded it. She became the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft and won the league&#8217;s Rookie of the Year Award. She&#8217;s now a two-time All-Star.<\/p>\n<p>Ever since she reached the W, though, tension has surfaced throughout the league, with some veterans potentially hinting at their jealousy of Clark.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is what we&#8217;ve always wanted as a league,&#8221; Cunningham said. &#8220;So who cares who gets the credit? And if you&#8217;re smart, you&#8217;re making money off of them. Like, you&#8217;re literally making money from the viewership.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Right now, however, Clark is sidelined. She just missed her 14th regular-season game, and 15th game overall, this year. The standout Fever guard is battling her fourth muscle injury of the season, this one a <a data-i13n=\"cpos:5;pos:1\" href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/wnba\/breaking-news\/article\/caitlin-clark-injury-update-fever-star-to-miss-14th-regular-season-game-remains-out-with-right-groin-issue-225334521.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:right groin issue that she suffered on July 15;cpos:5;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">right groin issue that she suffered on July 15<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Honestly, no,&#8221; Cunningham said, when asked on her podcast if she knows when Clark is returning to the lineup. &#8220;It&#8217;s such a weird injury because she&#8217;s not in pain all the time. But then when you do hurt it, it&#8217;s like you&#8217;re out for another [stretch] \u2014 so I think they&#8217;re trying to be extra cautious so she doesn&#8217;t have those little setbacks.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Cunningham noted: &#8220;Of course, we want her to play, though, like I want her to play, but if we can be successful without her, give her a little bit more break, I think that&#8217;s gonna be good.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Fever, currently 15-12, are 7-7 in regular-season games without Clark on the floor this season. They also won the WNBA Commissioner&#8217;s Cup final in her absence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sophie Cunningham went to bat again for Indiana Fever teammate, and WNBA superstar, Caitlin Clark Wednesday, this time&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,735,48,3458,2803,13053,13054,10879,82,630,16002],"class_list":["post-38950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-caitlin-clark","tag-canada","tag-connecticut-sun","tag-indiana-fever","tag-jacy-sheldon","tag-marina-mabrey","tag-sophie-cunningham","tag-sports","tag-wnba","tag-yahoo-fantasy-football-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38950","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=38950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}