Kevin Durant’s interest in the WNBA has never been passing hype. He was an early investor in women’s sports media back in 2021, later joined a bid for a WNBA expansion team, and has repeatedly used his platform to praise the league’s rising stars.
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He addressed the ongoing Enes Kanter Freedom saga. Durant on Tuesday’s Houston Rockets media day, he was asked about the drama that’s followed the league in recent weeks.
“All that stuff used to be noise, man,” he said. “WNBA is flourishing. Look what these women are doing. Look at the money they’ve made over the last few years. Look at the visibility of their league.”
“They’ve got four or five signature athletes on major brands that represent major brands,” Durant said. “These women have brands for themselves, the business women for themselves outside of the game.”
The comments come amid weeks of headlines surrounding Kanter Freedom. The former player declared himself eligible for the WNBA Draft in protest of the league’s gender-inclusion policies before getting ejected from a Fever-Sky game following a heated exchange with Chicago’s Natasha Cloud.
Kanter has since sued the Sky over the ejection, keeping the controversy in the news cycle well past the initial incident. It pulled attention toward the league’s ongoing debate over transgender athlete eligibility, sparked earlier by comments from Fever guard Sophie Cunningham.
he and Royce White declared for the 2027 WNBA Draft specifically to challenge the league’s gender eligibility policy. League sources described the move as a “publicity stunt meant to sow division and draw attention.”
White has used his WNBA draft declaration as a policy protest rather than a genuine basketball pursuit. League sources have been unambiguous that neither he nor Kanter Freedom is eligible to play under the WNBA’s current collective bargaining agreement, which restricts the league to women.
“So a lot of that stuff, the politics that they bring into sports nowadays, I understand the messaging behind what they’re trying to do,” Durant said, acknowledging the broader debate without engaging in it directly. “But a person like me who just strictly cares for the purity of the sport, I do not give a f*** about none of that. I care about flourishing and pushing the league forward. And that’s what’s happening right now.”
Notably, Kevin Durant never mentioned Kanter by name in his response. He kept his comments deliberately broad rather than engaging with the controversy.
Durant had stayed out of a controversy that’s pulled in nearly every other prominent NBA voice over the past month. From Stephen A. Smith to Royce White to Joe Rogan, he chose to finally address it only in the vaguest possible terms, redirecting the conversation toward the league’s business growth rather than the underlying eligibility fight.