{"id":309566,"date":"2025-11-23T20:49:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T20:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/309566\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T20:49:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T20:49:08","slug":"sophie-cunningham-supports-mpjs-claim-that-an-eighth-grade-boys-team-could-beat-wnba-all-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/309566\/","title":{"rendered":"Sophie Cunningham Supports MPJ\u2019s Claim That An Eighth Grade Boys Team Could Beat WNBA All Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sophie Cunningham<\/a> didn\u2019t duck Michael Porter Jr.\u2019s<\/a> latest controversial take. She openly agreed with his now-viral take that an eighth-grade boys\u2019 team can beat a group of WNBA All-Stars<\/a>. Usually, comments like MPJ\u2019s attract a lot of flak and criticism. But Sophie Cunningham chose blunt honesty.<\/p>\n

On her podcast Show Me Something with West Wilson<\/a>, the Indiana Fever guard said what most players, male or female, tiptoe around.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I would say that\u2019s like probably true. I mean, it\u2019s probably true. I don\u2019t want to be like unrealistic or delusional, like men are just stronger, bigger, athletic. Like they just are a different build. And if so, if you put them up against females, well, yeah, they\u2019re going to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cunninham made it clear she wasn\u2019t endorsing disrespect towards women\u2019s basketball. Her point was rooted in basic biology. The skill has never been the issue. It\u2019s always been size, strength, explosion, and physicality that tip the scale.<\/p>\n

She wasn\u2019t saying eighth graders are better basketball players. She wasn\u2019t saying WNBA vets lack talent. She was simply acknowledging that physical differences change the matchup entirely. And she said it without the defensiveness or anger that usually surrounds the topic.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s history behind her perspective, too. Porter Jr. originally made the comment during a conversation with Lonzo<\/a> and LaMelo Ball<\/a>, citing practices from his childhood. He said that when he was in seventh and eighth grade, he would scrimmage with Missouri\u2019s women\u2019s team and hold his own, sometimes dominate. Cunningham remembers those runs because she was on those teams.<\/p>\n

That shared background explains why she didn\u2019t take Porter\u2019s comments personally. If anything, she sounded exhausted with how often the conversation resurfaces.<\/p>\n

Porter has already tried to clarify that he isn\u2019t anti-WNBA. He said he grew up watching Cunningham and his own sisters play, and he\u2019s praised the league repeatedly. But he didn\u2019t walk back the take, even after the Nets asked him to stop talking about the WNBA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And now one of the WNBA\u2019s most outspoken voices has publicly backed the core idea.<\/p>\n

Still, Cunningham pushed for the discussion to quiet down. She knows how quickly this topic gets weaponized, especially in a year when the WNBA is growing faster than ever. Agreeing with Porter doesn\u2019t mean she thinks the women\u2019s game deserves less respect, only that some matchups aren\u2019t realistic.<\/p>\n

Her honesty stands out. She didn\u2019t protect the league for the sake of optics. She didn\u2019t go after Porter to satisfy social media. She gave a calm, grounded answer that came from experience, not emotion.<\/p>\n

In a debate that usually turns into noise, Cunningham delivered a rare thing: perspective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sophie Cunningham didn\u2019t duck Michael Porter Jr.\u2019s latest controversial take. She openly agreed with his now-viral take that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309567,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":{"0":"post-309566","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}