mentioned<\/a> scrimmaging against Cunningham\u2019s Missouri team when he was \u201cin the 7th or 8th grade, going crazy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\nLonzo Ball agreed on the same show and said, \u201c9th-grade Lonzo Ball in the WNBA is going crazy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Many social media users attacked the comments. Cunningham pushed back against the outrage Nov. 20 during her Show Me Something podcast. She said she understood the reaction but believed the conversation had drifted away from basic facts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is my personal opinion. But if you are a professional football player, basketball player, really any sport \u2026 if you\u2019re in that elite level group, yeah, you should be able to beat the girls,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She added she was not surprised and did not see why the issue kept resurfacing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cunningham also said women should not deny the physical differences between male and female athletes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf women are saying, \u2018He couldn\u2019t beat them,\u2019 yeah, he could. Any NBA star could beat a female in high school,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to be unrealistic or delusional. Like, men are just stronger, bigger, athletic. They just are a different build. So if you put them up against females, yeah, they\u2019re gonna win.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
When she learned Porter was referring to eighth-grade boys, she still backed him, though she said he meant only boys with elite potential.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe context of it is fair,\u201d she said. She explained eighth-graders who are \u201cfuture pros\u201d are often already tall and strong enough to compete.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I would say that that\u2019s probably true,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s probably true!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cunningham stressed she was not insulting female athletes. She said she was acknowledging reality.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI just don\u2019t think that\u2019s a fair matchup,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She later said Porter had been \u201cclick-baited\u201d and taken out of context, describing the controversy as exaggerated.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The conversation comes as many public institutions continue to treat biological distinctions as controversial, even when athletes speak plainly on the issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham defended Denver Nuggets forward Michael Porter Jr. this week after his comments about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":{"0":"post-318087","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\/318087","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=318087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}