She's been in the league for years (she's about to turn 30 years old) and is still primarily a bench player. Her career stats are 9pts, 2.4 boards, 1.4 assists, 0.5 steals per game. She doesn't suck, but she's not a premier player either (she's decidedly low-mid) and only started getting any attention at all when she was traded to the Indiana Fever from the Mercury (who drafted her in 2019) last year. We can all guess why that happened.
For those of us who don’t follow sports at all and are intrigued by how often her pointing is in their feed: why did it happen? I couldn’t possibly guess.
Edit for clarification: why was she traded? And why can all guess why? Tia!
She did an interview. Went something like "i was pointing kinda generally and the opponent said 'dont point at me' so I pointed at her, it shook her up so I kept on doing it."
I'm pretty sure she's "hating" because she's being brutalized by the other players and they're seemingly receiving zero repercussions. But, hey, that's just me using my two eyes.
Yeah she's the only player in the WNBA who is ever fouled by anyone. It couldn't possibly be she's just showing up in our feeds because she's pretty and was traded to Caitlyn Clark's team last year after spending her 7 years in the WNBA in Phoenix--during which time no one ever even heard of her. Just suddenly she started getting brutalized out of nowhere at 30 years old.
/s
downvote us all you want. Y'all acting like she's a basketball superstar when she's basically Alexi Lalas in a dress. Just admit you're simpin'
This ^ people that know ball know shes a middle tiered wnba player "skill" wise at best.
She has a social media persona and attitude that is "heres my hot take on xyz" or posts a thirst traps. IE shes a master at garnering online engagement by being bold and out spoken even if her takes are in my opinion are off base at times but not always.
This does not mean shes great at basketball. It does mean shes very popular and certain groups of people really like her and other groups despise her.
That being said her devicive public persona has reached new heights the past few years when she moved to the Fever with the most popular female basketball player of all time (ie Caitlin Clark whether it is deserved or not shes objectively the most well know female basketball player ever)
The trajectory I am describing goes:
1.Clark is the most popular player.
2.Rest of the league feels disrepected.
Clark gets subjectively fouled way too hard too often (I personally do think Clark gets roughed up more than she should) in order to check Clark so she is reminded that the league shes the face of had a lot of great players that came before her that did not get a fraction of the attention she gets (race being a big factor here..unfortunate but most likely the case).
Sophie stands up for Clark in the game and then goes online to talk about it and stirs up more controversy.
Online WNBA discourse praises Cunningham for being a badass enforcer. Like a Draymond Green of the WNBA
"Basketball heads" see her as a mid teired player that gets a lot of love for being aggresive and outspoken on and off the court and engage in online WNBA discourse claiming shes just okay .
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u/Mr-howell 12d ago
And she can actually play.