Chicago Sky bans Freedom from future home games
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CHICAGO -- 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 to our satisfaction that he is 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 just see how much attention he could get and stir up and create," Alter told reporters.
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.
Sky trying to identify people who threw sex toys onto court
Also Tuesday, Alter said the team has reviewed what happened when multiple sex toys were thrown onto the court during a 73-70 victory over Golden State on Friday night.
"We know who the people are," Alter said. "We saw them, but we don't have their names yet. We're trying to get their names. We know how they exited, so we're going to address that to make that more difficult."
Ratings going up
The Indiana Fever-Chicago Sky game Sunday averaged 3.31 million viewers on NBC and Peacock to make it the most-watched regular-season WNBA game since the league's inaugural season in 1997.
It also was the third-most watched regular-season game ever and peaked at 3.82 million viewers. That is behind only the June 21-22, 1997 opening weekend games that featured the New York Liberty-Los Angeles Sparks (5.04 million) and Charlotte Sting-Phoenix Mercury (3.59 million), also both on NBC.
Caitlin Clark and the Fever continue to be the league's top draw. They also have set all-time viewing records this season for games on CBS, ESPN and Amazon Prime Video.
Against the Sky, Clark made a career-high eight 3-pointers and scored 37 points in the Fever's 113-90 victory. Teammate Kelsey Mitchell added 30.
That game was the first meeting since Chicago's DiJonai Carrington fouled Indiana's Sophie Cunningham on a breakaway in the Fever's 90-86 victory on Aug. 8. Carrington was ejected for the Flagrant 2 foul.
There were no such incidents between the two in the rematch.
But there was controversy. Former NBA center Enes Kanter Freedom attended as a spectator and was ejected in the third quarter after he and the Sky's Natasha Cloud exchanged words. Freedom has since been banned from Sky home games.