CHICAGO (AP) — The Chicago Sky have banned Enes Kanter Freedom from their home games after the former NBA center was ejected from Sunday's loss to the Indiana Fever.
Owner Michael Alter made the announcement in a rare news conference on Tuesday. Alter told reporters Freedom is not allowed inside of Wintrust Arena for Sky games “unless sometime in the future, he’s able to prove to us that he’s able to abide by our rules without being a potential threat.”
The 6-foot-10, 250-pound Freedom was removed from Sunday's game after he was confronted by Sky guard Natasha Cloud late in the third quarter.
Freedom was sitting along the baseline wearing a black shirt that read “WOMAN noun. adult human female.”
The Fever called for a timeout after Cloud scored inside with 1:22 left in the third. Cloud then did a chest bump with teammate Aicha Coulibaly before turning around and walking in Freedom’s direction.
Cloud, 34, started yelling and pointing at Freedom, 34, as she approached him. A standing Freedom held his arms out and stepped onto the court as security and a handful of Sky players moved in between the two.
“It was pretty clear to us that his purpose of coming here was trying to be provocative and see how much attention he could get,” Alter told reporters from the Chicago Sun-Times and other media outlets.
Freedom stopped near the basket to plead his case to security as he was escorted from the court area. He spun around while holding his shirt out and encouraged the crowd to respond as he walked toward the front lobby.
He had a conversation with a group of police officers before departing the arena.
“I just got kicked out of a @WNBA game for supporting WOMEN!” Freedom wrote on social media. “Let that sink in, AMERICA!”
Freedom and Royce White, another former NBA player, have declared for the WNBA draft, saying they identify as women. But a person familiar with the decision told the AP on Monday that they are not eligible. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the situation.
The WNBA has been the subject of recent debates on whether transgender women — people assigned male at birth who transition to align with their gender identity — should be allowed to participate in the league. There has never been such a player in the WNBA.
Although the league’s collective bargaining agreement says the WNBA is restricted to women, it contains no more specific language about gender identity or sex assigned at birth.
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