Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham earned the title of Caitlin Clark’s ‘enforcer’ after stepping in to defend her teammate during a heated altercation with Jacy Sheldon last season. But in 2026, following Cunningham’s recent controversial comments on transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, American sports writer Bomani Jones believes Cunningham has become a distraction that Clark simply doesn’t need.

“They always say about a basketball team, ‘If you got knuckleheads, you can have one knucklehead, but you can’t have two. I’m starting to think that you can have a Caitlin Clark, but you can’t have it with a Sophie Cunningham because right now all the heat ain’t really got nothing to do with Caitlin Clark. (Sophie) bringing all the heat… They coming over to Caitlin Clark like, ‘Hey Caitlin. You know how Sophie be like fouling people for you anyway. What do you think about what she had to say?'”

“In men’s sports, we talk about distractions; that is as big a distraction as there has ever been around the team. If you gonna have Caitlin Clark on the team, you can’t have one of those right there. Unless Caitlin’s trying to lean in with it. It seems pretty clear that she does not have the same get-down as Sophie Cunningham. But she’s gonna have to answer for everything Sophie Cunningham say and Sophie Cunningham’s gonna keep saying it all because this is what’s getting her bread,” Jones said on The Right Time with Bomani Jones podcast clip posted to X.

The conversation around Caitlin Clark after multiple controversies throughout this ongoing season was just starting to quiet down. But what Cunningham said about protecting “young girls in a locker room,” has once again locked the spotlight on the 24-year-old even though she has nothing to do with it.

Clark has consistently tried to steer conversations back to basketball whenever off-court storylines have threatened to overshadow the game. So, after Cunningham’s comments turned the Fever’s last three games into a stage for fans to display where they stand on transgender athletes in women’s sports, Clark simply maintained her approach as she spoke after the Fever fell against the Minnesota Lynx on Sunday

“I think it’s for leagues and governing bodies to work with their athletes to find solutions. Our focus is on basketball. That’s what we talk about and how we can get wins and obviously we didn’t do that tonight. So we need to find an area to improve in that way.”

However, everything quickly spiraled once again as a section of fans expected the star guard to support her teammate. This is why Jones believes this situation has become such a challenge for Indiana. In his view, Caitlin Clark has been pulled into the conversation simply because she’s the face of the franchise.

With just 14 regular-season games remaining, the Fever sit at 19-11 and firmly in the playoff race. Caitlin Clark made it clear before the season began that her goal is to compete for a championship. But as the debate surrounding Cunningham continues to dominate headlines, the attention surrounding Indiana shows little sign of shifting entirely back to basketball soon.