Former NBA center Enes Kanter Freedom has declared his desire to have his first poster dunk in the WNBA on Angel Reese after his WNBA Draft declaration.
Kanter seems to be going through with his plans to declare for the WNBA Draft and get selected, or exhaust all legal measures until he gets a shot, or the WNBA bans trans athletes from competing.
With the WNBA openly stating it won’t give in to efforts to sow division by bad-faith actors, Kanter continues to push the idea of playing in the W.
Enes Kanter declares intention to dunk on Angel Reese
Kanter took to X after the Atlanta Dream’s OT loss to the Indiana Fever on Sunday, saying that he intends to make Reese the first player he dunks on.
“Sis! Once I go No. 1 pick in the 2027 WNBA Draft, the first player I’m dunking on is Angel Reese. She’s the Paul George of the WNBA. Just lean into the podcast already.”
The random shot at Paul George seems unnecessary, especially when Kanter and George were peers in the NBA, and George’s career has been comfortably better than Kanter’s.
Many Reese haters have spent years comparing Reese to Kanter due to offensive rebounding being their specialty.
The feud with Reese seems unprompted, as Kanter has never publicly made comments for or against Reese in the past. The 24-year-old Dream forward has also never publicly addressed Kanter in her career.
Will the WNBA allow Enes Kanter to be selected in the Draft?
The WNBA reportedly believes that the threats posed by Kanter and former NBA first-round pick Royce White’s draft declarations are unserious, and likely doesn’t anticipate a world where either makes it to the Draft.
The league isn’t rushing a decision on its eligibility rules, which currently just vaguely state that only women are eligible to participate.
To enable future trans athlete inclusion while protecting the league with 100% biological women currently, the WNBA will have to put parameters in place that will not allow bad-faith actors like Kanter and White to create such instability in the future.
However, clarifying these gender rules will take nuance and can’t be rushed. If they can’t be agreed upon and implemented by the 2027 Draft, the headache presented by Kanter and White’s legal challenges might grow exponentially.
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