A day after Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White announced they were planning to enter the 2027 WNBA Draft, they’ve already started to receive backlash from former NBA players.
Robin Lopez, a Los Angeles native who played at Stanford, had a 16-year NBA career and called out Freedom on an X repost from former NFL star Robert Griffin III in which Griffin asked sports fans their thoughts about Freedom and White declaring for the WNBA draft.
“Biggest issue: If you’re being drafted, people are saying ‘We want you around for 4 years,” Lopez wrote. “& I can’t imagine anybody wants Enes Kanter or Royce White around them for 4 minutes.”
White responded to Lopez’s comment by writing “Lol join the club ROBIN… I’ll slap your big goofy ass, b—- slap you like pootie tang! I will fight over these trans rights.”
Lopez responded to White and said: “Yes we get it you love slapping people with women’s names.”
White announced that he was planning to enter the 2027 WNBA Draft, just hours after Kanter did on Friday.
“I’m transgender. I’m a woman. … I identify as sometimes identifying as a woman for purposes of… professional basketball,” White told Fox News.
White had a short-lived NBA career, appearing in three games for the Sacramento Kings in 2013-2014, and only saw three minutes of playing time. In his post-playing career, he’s become involved in politics and is now a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate.
Freedom and White’s intentions to join the WNBA draft came days after Sophie Cunningham’s comments on transgender athletes, which sparked controversy around the league.
Cunningham has been facing backlash for comments she made earlier this year about transgender athletes. She stated that biological men should not be allowed to compete against biological women in sports.
The Post reported that Freedom said his decision to enter the WNBA draft has zero intent to troll Cunningham’s opponents.
