Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham turned heads on Tuesday, criticizing the latest WNBA expansion plans in light of ongoing WNBPA CBA negotiations.
Cunningham drew ire from some fans after expressing skepticism about the WNBA awarding expansion teams to Detroit and Cleveland over other possible cities, while also suggesting that the league might be growing too quickly.
"You want to listen to your players, too. Where do they want to play?" she told reporters ahead of Indiana's Commissioner's Cup win. "I'm not so sure what the thought process is there, but at the end of the day, you want to make sure that you're not expanding our league too fast."
"It's kind of a hard decision-making situation. But man, I don't know how excited people are to be going to Detroit or [Cleveland]."
Elsewhere, Phoenix Mercury forward Satou Sabally also voiced her expansion concerns on Tuesday, calling on the WNBA to keep player support at the forefront when adding expansion teams.
"We really have to put an emphasis on the players that are in our league right now," she told reporters. "Maybe focus on the teams that find excuses continuously to lack investment in their players before we focus on adding more to the grain of people that can't really be sustained."