Ever since Napheesa Collier called out Cathy Engelbert over the delayed CBA negotiations last October, the WNBA commissioner has barely caught a break. From growing criticism over officiating and player safety to questions surrounding her response to the Alyssa Thomas-Caitlin Clark controversy, she has found herself under constant scrutiny. But when she finally had the chance to address those concerns on one of sports media’s biggest platforms, she pulled out. And lead basketball analyst James Young believes that decision said everything about her leadership.

“She needs to be fired,” Young said on the latest episode of SportsGrid. “Cathy Engelbert should have been ran out of this league years ago. She gets booed. You think Adam Silver gets booed?… They boo this lady every damn where she goes. And she continues to mess up. What she did to Dan Patrick is so disrespectful and so beneath the office of the Commissioner. You hide behind your PR team.”

Cathy Engelbert was scheduled to make an appearance on The Dan Patrick Show while attending the American Century Championship in Lake Tahoe. But after the interview was canceled at the last minute, Patrick revealed that Engelbert’s public relations team informed him she would no longer appear, after leaving him and his producers waiting for “almost two hours.”

And that decision became the latest addition to the growing criticism surrounding the commissioner’s leadership.

“You got referees that don’t make enough money, you got all the players upset about what’s going on in the league, and you have a chance to go on national TV and fix it. And you know what you do? You go into your damn foxhole and go into hiding,” he further added.

He also proposed an offer to Cathy to do an interview with him, where he would throw “a couple of softballs” before bringing all the heat like Dan Patrick.

Being the commissioner of one of the fastest-growing leagues in American sports is not an easy job, but Cathy Engelbert herself has repeatedly made it clear that she has “never been a quitter,” and nor is she going to “shy away” from the challenges that come with it.

But after weeks of scrutiny surrounding officiating, player safety, and the fallout from the Thomas-Clark controversy, The Dan Patrick Show presented an opportunity for her to address those concerns directly. Instead, her decision to step away from that platform has only given critics like James Young another reason to question whether she’s the right person to lead the league through its golden period.