Enes Kanter, Royce White not eligible for WNBA after draft declarations

Former NBA players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White will not be eligible to play in the WNBA after both declared themselves women and eligible for the draft, league sources told Front Office Sports.The recent declarations of Freedom and White are “simply publicity stunts” and the league is “not going to give oxygen to efforts designed to mock the league or use this topic to demean and marginalize others,” one league source said.The WNBA “will not allow outside pressure or manufactured controversy to dictate league processes,” the source said.The league will reportedly continue to discuss the topic, though it does not have any legitimate and immediate eligibility matters that require action.The decision came after Freedom was kicked out was kicked out of Wintrust Arena for a verbal altercation with Chicago star Natasha Cloud on Sunday night.The WNBA’s new collective bargaining agreement in Article XIII Section 1 (a), states: “Only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA.” The CBA, agreed upon in March, does not include any language around gender identity or gender assigned at birth.No known transgender woman has played in the WNBA.Freedom, who played 11 seasons in the NBA, has turned to political activism in recent years.He and White, a Republican political candidate for the U.S.Senate, declared the eligibility for the 2027 WNBA Draft earlier this month amid debates of transgender athletes in women’s sports.It came after Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham voiced support for barring transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports in an ESPN article published in July, which sparked a larger conversation and pro and anti-trans rallies before games.

Freedom, who sat courtside at the Sky-Fever game Sunday night, got into a verbal altercation with Cloud during a timeout called in the third quarter.Freedom was wearing a black T-shirt that read, “WOMAN noun.adult human female.”Cloud, who’s vocal of her support of tran...