Enes Kanter Freedom Says He'll Drop His WNBA Bid—But Only Under One Condition

Enes Kanter Freedom has finally revealed what it will take to end his increasingly chaotic WNBA campaign: one word.

The former NBA center says he'll abandon his attempted entry into the 2027 WNBA Draft if the league changes its eligibility language to explicitly state that only “biological females” can play. “If they come out tomorrow and say only biological females are eligible to play, I’d drop everything,” Freedom said, per The New York Post. “Until then, I am eligible to play.”

There is one major problem with Freedom's ultimatum: The WNBA says he isn't eligible now. Multiple league sources have said Freedom and former NBA player Royce White cannot enter the draft.

Freedom called those reports “fake news,” arguing that nobody from the league or Commissioner Cathy Engelbert's office has personally told him no.

The WNBA's CBA states that “only players who are women are eligible to play,” but doesn't publicly define the term further.

Meanwhile, Natasha Cloud would like the WNBA to stop entertaining Freedom altogether. After their confrontation at last weekend's Chicago Sky-Indiana Fever game, Cloud called Freedom “irrelevant” and urged the league to ban him from its arenas. “We're asking for protection, and that's what protection looks like from a man,” Cloud said, according to Front Office Sports. “We can bring solutions to the table that best benefit putting our players first and protecting our players.”

Freedom's WNBA campaign had already jumped from interviews to courtside confrontation by then. He attended the Sky-Fever game wearing a shirt defining a woman as an “adult human female” and got into a heated exchange with Cloud after celebrating a Sophie Cunningham three-pointer.

Freedom stood and stepped onto the court as security intervened. He was ultimately escorted from Wintrust Arena, and the Sky later banned him from returning. Team owner Michael Alter said Freedom appeared to have come looking for a reaction; Freedom maintained he did nothing wrong.

Cloud isn't interested in extending that argument. “I won't be talking about anything that happened with an irrelevant person,” she said. “What I will focus on is what actually affects women and children.”

She pointed instead to domestic violence, sexual assault and food insecurity. “I will talk about real issues that face women,” Cloud added, “and it's not our trans human beings. It's not our drag queens. It's not our gay community.” Cloud characterized the controversy consuming the league as an “intentional distraction.”

The WNBA has used similar language. It previously said there are “no immediate eligibility matters affecting the WNBA” and condemned “bad-faith efforts to use these topics to demean or marginalize others.”

Cloud's answer is considerably simpler: Stop making him the story.

“The more that we hate each other, the more that we have bias against each other,” she said, “the more we're going to be distracted from real life issues that are plaguing our communities.”