{"id":909949,"date":"2026-09-26T04:44:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T04:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/909949\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T04:44:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T04:44:15","slug":"sophie-cunningham-could-be-out-of-the-wnba-next-season-per-insider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/909949\/","title":{"rendered":"Sophie Cunningham could be out of the WNBA next season, per insider"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIf I had to predict, Sophie Cunningham is not on the Indiana Fever next year, and there\u2019s a chance she\u2019s not in the league next year,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketballnetwork.net\/wnba\/fever-insider-thinks-sophie-cunninghams-media-success-could-backfire\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lundberg said<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It came on the heels of Cunningham\u2019s decreasing influence on the court. She played a season-low seven minutes and scored zero points against Washington on September 20, compared to an average of 8.0 points per game in 42 games this season.<\/p>\n<p>Lundberg directly attributed the decline to Cunningham\u2019s outside presence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSophie has been a really good shooter, she\u2019s been a productive player,\u201d he said on his channel. \u201cBut when you indicate practices are too tough and then you only play seven minutes the next game, people are gonna go, \u2018Hmmm.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Coach Stephanie White later addressed defense and rebounding concerns, which Lundberg felt were a cause for concern as far as the coach\u2019s status in the program was concerned.<\/p>\n<p>This reduction in playing time, however, didn\u2019t last very long. Two days later, Cunningham had 29 minutes and 11 points in a 96-77 victory over Minnesota, demonstrating once again her capacity to score with an outburst of 24 points against Toronto back in June.<\/p>\n<p>Off the field, Cunningham\u2019s increasing profile within the media brings another dimension to the discussion in her contract year.<\/p>\n<p>Sophie Cunningham\u2019s Contract Situation Adds Weight To Lundberg\u2019s Prediction<\/p>\n<p>In April, Cunningham penned herself a one-year, $665,000 contract with Indiana. Therefore, her contract is up once the current season finishes, irrespective of the outcome of the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>She claims that she turned down multiple-year contracts from other teams in the league to play with the Fever again this season; thus, she contradicts Lundberg\u2019s prediction.<\/p>\n<p>Lundberg also cited Cunningham\u2019s growing podcasting venture as another reason teams should take her seriously.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo team wants to constantly be talking about what one of the players said, especially when it\u2019s a role player,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Cunningham also hosts \u201cNo Hesitation,\u201d which she relaunched in September in collaboration with skill development coach Drew Hanlen, having built up her media presence as much as her basketball one ever since transferring to Indiana in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Indiana currently sports a 28-15 record and is still chasing the playoffs, meaning that Cunningham\u2019s free agent decisions will have to wait until the season ends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIf I had to predict, Sophie Cunningham is not on the Indiana Fever next year, and there\u2019s a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":909950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-909949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909949","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=909949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/909950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=909949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=909949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=909949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}