The WNBA has spent years daring its own fans to look away.
Now one of its coaches just handed the critics a gift they didn’t even have to ask for.
And Stephen A. Smith unloaded on Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve in a way that’s going to be hard for the league to ignore.
The Shirt That Lit the Fuse
Smith launched an incensed rant against Cheryl Reeve, the head coach of the Minnesota Lynx, after Reeve wore a shirt that read “Trans Kids Belong” while coaching a WNBA game.
Reeve chose to wear the shirt during her first matchup against Sophie Cunningham since the Fever guard publicly defended women-only competition. That’s not a coincidence. That’s a provocation dressed up as a fashion choice.
Ever since Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham said in an ESPN feature that she wanted to “protect young girls in a locker room,” the debate over transgender athletes competing in women’s sports has dominated headlines around the WNBA.
Cunningham’s response to the blowback was simple: “I said what I said. I think it’s kind of common sense. I stand on what I said.”
Reeve apparently decided that wasn’t something she could let slide without a statement of her own.
During a recent episode of Smith’s self-titled show, he went on a 14-minute rant about Reeve and her stance. “She was seen wearing a ‘Trans Kid Belong’ t-shirt. I’m going to repeat that. A ‘Trans Kid Belong’ t-shirt on Sunday during the game following the remarks from Sophie Cunningham,” Smith said.
“And the thing that shocks me is, like, this is not a conversation about being anti-anything. This is a conversation about being pro-girls. Ladies and gentlemen, at some point in time, there has to be the return of common sense. This is not about preaching hate. Nobody is supporting that. This is not about looking at people who are trans and hating on them or wanting them denied their civil rights and civil liberties.”
Smith Went Straight at Reeve
Smith didn’t stop at the general principle. He named Reeve directly and didn’t soften the verdict.
“You are Cheryl Reeve, the head coach of the Minnesota Lynx. That is an irresponsible thing to do. You are a coach for a female basketball team. Do you not think that the females are being screwed over if they have to compete against an individual born as a male? What are you talking about? What are you talking about?”
Smith pushed further: “Trying to tell me that a college player, a man, at a college program anywhere in the country, or an NBA player, should transition to being a woman and be allowed to compete in the WNBA? On a collegiate level to a women’s college program, whether it’s UConn, South Carolina, Iowa, Tennessee, or wherever else you want to come up with. What the hell are you talking about? It’s not true. It’s false … If you’re a male transition into female, you shouldn’t be playing against the women.”
“And then you’re going to come out with a T-shirt. No regard for the WNBA. No regard for the sponsors that may be put off by that. No regard for the bottom line that might be affected,” he shouted.
“It’s just an accidental coincidence that that’s the game you chose to wear that? Oh, THIS IS THE B.S.! IT’S THE SELFISHNESS! IT’S PUTTING YOURSELF BEFORE THE BETTERMENT OF THE WHOLE!”
And then he took aim at something specific about the timing.
Smith accused Reeve of wearing the shirt “knowing that you’re going up against the Indiana Fever with Caitlin Clark, who obviously is the number one draw in the WNBA, which means cameras are rolling.”
Smith added: “We gotta stop this. We gotta stop acting like somebody that’s speaking up on behalf of girls, like the Sophie Cunninghams, like the Riley Gaineses, are scourges of the earth.”
That line alone is worth sitting with for a moment. The women who stood up to protect female athletics aren’t extremists. They’re the ones doing what the coaches and league officials should have been doing all along.
What the WNBA’s Own Silence Tells You
Smith was also careful to make clear his position wasn’t about hostility toward anyone.
“There are a lot of people who are empathetic and sympathetic to the challenges that you face… and want you to live your best life,” he said. “But it can’t be at the expense of young ladies born as girls, raised as girls, evolving into women … You don’t have the right to impede upon women’s sports.”
After the segment, Smith took his argument to social media and stood by every word.
“You can support people’s rights AND believe biological men shouldn’t compete in women’s sports. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. My issue isn’t hate. It’s protecting women, protecting girls, and asking why a WNBA coach chose to…”
Reeve, for her part, pushed back with a response that didn’t exactly engage Smith’s argument head-on.
Reeve said that “every kid has a right to sports regardless of (being) gender diverse, transgender.” She added, “That’s where I say that common-sense people get together, and you find common ground to find a way to be inclusive. The answer isn’t no. It is not the case that we have ‘biological men in girls’ locker rooms,’ the way it’s being phrased, the innuendo there that somehow transgender women are predators.”
Reeve also said it “is problematic to suggest that transgender athletes are the biggest problem in women’s sports.” That’s a deflection, not an answer. Smith wasn’t saying it’s the biggest problem. He was saying a head coach of a women’s team has a specific obligation to the women she coaches, and wearing that shirt in that moment violated it.
The WNBA has a real business problem underneath all of this. Smith argued that Cunningham and other women speaking out are taking the public heat while influential coaches like Reeve use the spotlight to push the opposite message, even if it risks alienating fans and sponsors that the WNBA needs to keep growing.
That’s not a minor complaint. The league has been riding a wave of popularity driven largely by Caitlin Clark. Burning that goodwill on activist messaging that alienates half the country is a choice, and it’s one the people running the league seem happy to keep making.
Reeve has worn shirts to make statements before, but she also got attention this time for having a pregame conversation with Cunningham, of which she declined to share the details.
Meanwhile, the fans who showed up to support Cunningham’s position didn’t exactly receive a warm welcome. Conservative activist Riley Gaines went to a WNBA game in Minneapolis to support Indiana Fever player Sophie Cunningham for speaking out against biological men in women’s sports. The league staff asked her to put down her sign that said “Sophie, Thank You, A Girl Mom.”
But a sign mocking Cunningham and Clark by name stayed up in the same arena. The league’s selective enforcement tells you everything you need to know about where its loyalties actually lie.
Gaines told Fox News’ *Hannity* that “the league often says that they have a problem with people like Sophie bringing politics into sports. The league doesn’t have a problem with politics in sports. They have a problem with conservative politics in sports.”
She’s right. And now Stephen A. Smith is saying the same thing out loud, in 14 minutes of unfiltered television, on a major platform. That’s not something the WNBA can just wait out.
The league built itself on political messaging. It put Black Lives Matter on the court, it wore social cause warm-ups, it made activism part of the brand. Fine. But the moment a player says something the Left doesn’t like, suddenly everyone wants to stick to basketball. The hypocrisy isn’t subtle. It’s the whole strategy.
Cunningham isn’t going anywhere. Gaines said she doesn’t believe Cunningham is in it for the praise, noting that her opinion could actually cost the Indiana Fever star opportunities. “And to be very clear, I don’t think Sophie is doing or saying what she does because she wants fame.”
And Smith isn’t backing down either. When one of ESPN’s most prominent voices goes on a 14-minute tear defending the women in women’s sports, that’s a signal the culture has shifted further than the WNBA’s front office wants to admit.
Sources: Mediaite, The Stephen A. Smith Show (SiriusXM), OutKick/Fox News, The Hill, The Blast, Yahoo Sports, Breitbart Sports, The Mirror US, Hungarian Conservative