Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham said she feels the WNBA applied a “double standard” by not disciplining Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson for an incident involving a fan during a first-round matchup between the Aces and Fever.<\/p>\n
Cunningham was called for a foul on Wilson in the fourth quarter of the Fever’s Game 2 win Tuesday, after which a fan stood and pointed at Wilson<\/a>. <\/p>\n Wilson, who stepped forward to confront the fan as multiple Aces players ran over to pull her away, did not face any additional discipline past the technical foul she received on the play. <\/p>\n “She’s like the LeBron James of our league, and so of course they’re not going to suspend her… Something should have happened,” Cunningham said on Saturday’s episode<\/a> of her podcast, the No Hesitation Show with Drew Hanlen. “The two people who came off the bench onto the court, that should have happened. I think there’s definitely a double standard.”<\/p>\n Cunningham added she didn’t want Wilson to have been ejected from the game in part because she feels the Fever “would have gotten a lot of backlash from that.” <\/p>\n “We yell from the rooftops that we want equality, that we want to be treated like the men, that we want all this stuff and we deserve all these things, and we do, we do deserve it,” Cunningham said. “But if you’re asking for all these fans to come\u2014 and you have new fans, who are real sports fans, and they come and do something that a sports fan would probably do if you’re on the opposing team, and then you’re going to go for him for just pointing, saying that you fouled? Grow up.”<\/p>\n Cunningham also said she felt the Aces benefitted from an “A’ja whistle” after her Fever teammate Caitlin Clark seemingly hinted at criticism of the refereeing of the first-round series by previously reacting<\/a> to a disparity in foul calls.<\/p>\n