The comparisons between the NBA and WNBA are nothing new. And Sophie Cunningham is not the one to shy away from making those comparisons either. After previously insisting that the players in the W just get a “hat and a T-shirt” as their signing bonus, as compared to the blockbuster amounts received by their NBA counterparts, Cunningham has now taken a jab at NBA players for not being too far off when it comes to missing layups.
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Speaking with comedian Theo Von in the ‘This Past Weekend’ podcast, Cunningham, although admitting that the WNBA players miss more layups than NBA players but questioned why the difference wasn’t greater considering WNBA rarely dunk.
“We’re good at it, but we do smoke a lot of layups,” Cunningham told Von. “I understand that we miss a lot of layups. The majority of us can’t dunk the ball, and if I was a man and I was able to dunk, I’d be dunking that thing every single time. Like you’re that high up there, f****** dunk it!”
Since an uncontested dunk is almost guaranteed to be a success, Cunningham argued that she wouldn’t even rely on the layups since even an uncontested layup has a chance of missing the basket while coming off the glass.
Cunningham’s response came after she saw data Von pulled up during their conversation that showed the disparity wasn’t as chasmic as even the Fever guard had thought.
The stat sheet compared the 2025-26 NBA regular season’s layup stats against the 2026 WNBA regular season stats. The stats, taken from ESPN’s play-by-play, showed NBA players averaged 7.6 missed layups per 40 minutes, compared to WNBA players averaging 9.7 over the same period. However, those numbers narrowed even further when looking at the full-game stats.
As per the stats Von showed, NBA players missed 9.1 layups per game, while the average for WNBA players remained the same at 9.7.
“Oh wait. That’s damn near the same thing!” remarked Sophie Cunningham.
While it’s true the NBA plays at a faster pace, registering 101.6 possessions per game during the 2022-2023 season compared to the WNBA’s 96 in 2023, chalking this up to a simple gap in raw athleticism misses the mark. The men’s game is undeniably built on physical advantages.
The Sports Analytics Group at Berkeley estimates that the average height of an NBA player is 6’6″, giving them the physiological advantage over WNBA players, whose average height they estimated at around 6 feet. So it’s no wonder that the men dunk more frequently than the women.
The WNBA, however, counters with its own style of play. Constant off-ball movement and court vision become the focus.
So while this comparison between the men’s and women’s leagues will go on beyond this discussion on missed layups, in the past, Cunningham herself has been compared to an NBA player.
Cunningham Compared Herself To An NBA Player
Earlier in the year, when Caitlin Clark stepped up to the mic for her guest broadcasting debut on NBC’s NBA pregame show on Feb. 1, few could have predicted the viral moment that followed.
In a comparison that certainly turned heads, Indiana Pacers legend Reggie Miller compared Caitlin Clark to Payton Pritchard. While many analysts immediately reach for the most obvious star names, Miller highlighted Pritchard’s steady ball-handling and fearless shot-making in the clutch, arguing that those specific, defining traits perfectly echo Clark’s dynamic abilities on the hardwood.
After this, in an interview with SiriusXM Sports, Sophie Cunningham offered up her own NBA player comparison, detailing which men’s professional game most closely aligns with her own skill set.
“So, if you’re asking Reggie Miller, I don’t know what he would say what my NBA comparison would be,” Cunningham said while referencing Miller’s comments.
“But, I feel like I get, like, a lot of Grayson Allen quite a bit,” she added. “And I’ll take that. He’s a hell of a shooter, and he’s tough. So say less.”
It’s not hard to see why Cunningham would make this comparison. The then-Phoenix Suns guard has carved out an NBA career defined by toughness, pairing a lethal shooting stroke with defensive coverage. When you watch Cunningham operate on the floor, those same gritty, two-way characteristics are immediately apparent.