{"id":871559,"date":"2026-08-26T01:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T01:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/871559\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T01:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T01:28:10","slug":"enes-kanter-freedom-banned-by-chicago-sky-after-altercation-with-natasha-cloud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/871559\/","title":{"rendered":"Enes Kanter Freedom banned by Chicago Sky after altercation with Natasha Cloud"},"content":{"rendered":"

Enes Kanter Freedom, a former NBA player who has recently gained notoriety for his vocal opposition to transgender athletes competing in women\u2019s sports, has been indefinitely banned from Chicago Sky home games after a recent verbal altercation<\/a> with a player and ejection from the arena, team owner Michael Alter told The Athletic.<\/p>\n

The WNBA will not institute a league-wide ban on Freedom, according to a source with knowledge of the decision. Anonymity was granted because the source is not permitted to publicly speak on the matter.<\/p>\n

Freedom, wearing a shirt that read, \u201cWOMAN noun. adult human female,\u201d sat courtside at Wintrust Arena for the Sky\u2019s game against the Indiana Fever. Alter said Freedom turned himself into a \u201cpotential threat\u201d by stepping toward Cloud after she chirped when she made a basket in the third quarter. Fever security restrained Cloud, and Freedom was removed from the arena by security.<\/p>\n

Alter said it\u2019s possible the Sky will reconsider the ban \u201cif someday he\u2019s able to demonstrate he\u2019s capable of being at a game and conducting himself in compliance with our rules and not be a threat to people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this month Freedom, who played 11 seasons in the NBA before being waived by the Houston Rockets in 2022, announced he intended to declare for the 2027 WNBA Draft in protest of transgender women competing in the league. Royce White, who was drafted 16th overall by the Rockets in the 2012 NBA Draft but played only three games in the league, followed with his own declaration.<\/p>\n

The WNBA CBA does not outline specific eligibility requirements as it pertains to transgender women competing in the league, but it states that \u201conly players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA.\u201d There are no transgender women playing in the WNBA. Both Kanter and White are ineligible to compete in the WNBA, as outlined by the CBA and confirmed by sources around the league to The Athletic.<\/p>\n

The topic of transgender athlete inclusion has sparked small demonstrations \u2014 both for and against \u2014 outside Fever road games since Indiana guard Sophie Cunningham\u2019s views against trans athletes in women\u2019s sports appeared in an ESPN article. There was another rally before Sunday\u2019s game in Chicago, and Freedom was seen getting\u00a0heckled outside of the arena<\/a>\u00a0before tip-off.<\/p>\n

Freedom appeared with conservative Fox News host Laura Ingraham on \u201cThe Ingraham Angle\u201d Monday night and said he texted with Sky general manager Jeff Pagliocca before the game to alert the team of his planned attendance. Alter said after hearing from Freedom\u2019s manager (not Freedom directly), Pagliocca immediately alerted Sky ownership and security.<\/p>\n

Pagliocca, who became the Sky\u2019s general manager after a lengthy career training professional athletes in the NBA and WNBA, formerly trained Freedom. Alter said the two had not spoken in \u201cthree or four years.\u201d Alter said he regrets not informing players about Freedom\u2019s attendance before the game, but he had worried it would be a distraction. The Sky were unaware of where his seat was located.<\/p>\n

Alter said he was pleased with arena and league security acting with Chicago Police Department officers at the game to take swift action to remover Freedom.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole thing changed when he decided to get up,\u201d Alter said. \u201cI heard him say \u2018I got up and I took a step, but I never crossed the baseline.\u2019 The security\u2019s job isn\u2019t to wait to see how far they get before they do something. It\u2019s to get there before that happens and avoid it. He should know that as well as anybody having played in the NBA.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sky had opted to add a third security guard for this game specifically after an Aug. 8 contest in the Fever that involved a controversial ejection of Sky guard<\/a> DiJonai Carrington. A Sky spokesperson said security measures will be decided on a game by game basis going forward.<\/p>\n

Freedom has a long history of being outspoken on political and societal issues.<\/p>\n

When he was waived by the Rockets, he claimed at the time that it was because of his views about the Chinese government \u2014 an accusation NBA commissioner Adam Silver denied. Born in Switzerland to Turkish immigrants and raised in Turkey before moving to the U.S. as a teen, he has publicly criticized President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, and called out the NBA for conducting business with China despite human rights abuses. He called for the U.S. to boycott the 2022 Olympics in China, and added \u201cFreedom\u201d to his name during the same year.<\/p>\n

Freedom\u2019s ejection from the Sky game was the second incident over the course of the weekend in which a game at Wintrust Arena was disrupted. The first occurred on Friday during the Sky\u2019s game against the Golden State Valkyries when several sex toys were thrown onto the court<\/a> in the third quarter. Alter said the team has visually identified the perpetrators using security images, but they don\u2019t have their names.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur intention is to continue until we find them,\u201d Alter said. \u201cWe will prosecute them once we do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Enes Kanter Freedom, a former NBA player who has recently gained notoriety for his vocal opposition to transgender…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":871560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,726,459,82,575,630],"class_list":["post-871559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chicago-sky","tag-nba","tag-sports","tag-sports-business","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871559","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=871559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}