Stephanie White went to bat for her players, but Caitlin Clark superfan Dave Portnoy isn’t going to bat for the embattled Fever coach.
After White delivered a passionate two-plus-minute rant Tuesday night in defense of herself, Fever players and the WNBA community following DiJonai Carrington’s hard foul of Indiana’s Sophie Cunningham and amid the discussion about the league that has entered the political sphere, Portnoy tweeted his qualms.
“I am a legit Fever fan. If she just said ‘I f—-d up the other night. I shoulda defended Sophie (MY PLAYER) and not DJ so I get why our fans our pissed at me’ maybe I can accept the apology. But this didnt (sic) really feel like an apology. More her yelling at us for trying to divide the locker room or something,” Portnoy wrote.
“Like blaming us for DJ tweeting ‘white privilege’ in the locker room. That’s what is dividing people. Fever fans and players get blamed for everything under the sun. We’re not trying to divide anybody but its Fever vs the world and we want a coach who feels and acts that way.”
White’s message before the Fever’s 106-92 home win over the Liberty on Tuesday attempted to confront the two storylines that are engulfing the league — and mostly the Fever.
In Sunday’s 90-86 road win over the Sky, Carrington, a former player under White, committed a hard foul on Cunningham, whose recent comments about trans athletes have set the league ablaze.
Carrington hit Cunningham across the face and received a flagrant 2, but White said she did not believe that her former player “intentionally” committed the transgression.
That led to Indiana Lt. Gov Micah Beckwith and others calling out White, with Beckwith even posting that the Fever “need to let Stephanie White go.”
Indiana fans even booed White before the game, with Clark saying she “hated” that they did so.
White defended herself Tuesday against those railing against her.
“This isn’t necessarily for those people that are in this room. This is more for the online community that’s trying to create narratives that simply don’t exist, trying to create a fabrication or distortion of who I am, of what I’m about,” White said before her team improved to 21-12.
“Our players’ success, our players’ health and wellness, our player safety is always a top priority for me. One of the things I pride myself on is my relationships with players. For those who have anything to say about the play in the last game, I didn’t see the play in real time. I went straight to a press conference. I thought the play got called right, thankfully Sophie’s OK. Was it egregious? Absolutely. When you have a chance to watch that, over and over and over on replay, you can see that. I didn’t have that in real time.
“I take personally any suggestions that I don’t 100 percent always have my player’s back. I ride with them 10 toes down all the time — all the time. They know that. It’s a shame that we can’t have an opportunity to talk about what great basketball they’re playing because they are f–king playing.”
The second part of her statement focused on how the WNBA has become highjacked in recent weeks after Cunningham voiced her disapproval for trans athletes possibly playing in the WNBA.
There are currently no trans athletes in the WNBA.
Former NBA players Enes Kanter and Royce White have since declared for the WNBA draft, which has taken the discussion from the courts into the highly polarizing political battlefield.
White, who is a member of the LGBTQ+ community, decried those individuals who she believes are spreading “hate” and the like.
“The reality is, with me, I will always lead with love. I will always lead with grace, I will always lead with humility and I will always lead with integrity. Doesn’t mean I’ll always get it right,” White said. “I’m also human. The hate, the fear-mongering, the divisiveness, the stuff that’s trying to hijack our league will not win. It won’t win. We are united, we are connected. We will not be divided. Every day these women put their ass on the line. Every day. When they go low, we go high. Love will win. Grace will win. Humility will win, and kindness will win. I stand by them. I’ll always stand by them. Everybody else can go to hell.”
Amid all the drama, the Fever have moved into fourth place in the WNBA and are within striking range of both the third-place Aces and second-place Valkyries.
