During Indiana’s June game against Phoenix, Caitlin Clark got tangled up with DeWanna Bonner. Cunningham stepped in, and soon she and Bonner were locked in a 22-second pointing match while Fever staff tried to separate them. The moment went viral almost instantly. Days later, Cunningham essentially acknowledged the absurdity of it herself. She called the gesture stupid, adding that she couldn’t help herself because she knew it was getting under Bonner’s skin. Now, citing a season of such controversies surrounding Cunningham, The Athletic columnist Candace Buckner believes it is time for the Fever to move on from the 30-year-old. And as always, Caitlin Clark was central to the discussion.

“Cunningham is too combustible, her takes too turbulent to be paired with Caitlin Clark. On the same team, it’s just too much.” Buckner said in an October 6 opinion column for The Athletic.

Back in July, Sophie Cunningham sparked a nationwide controversy for her stance on transgender athletes in an ESPN profile. And soon enough, Clark found herself being dragged into the conversation more than she liked.

On Aug. 2 in Minneapolis, supporters and opponents of Sophie Cunningham’s stance on transgender athletes gathered outside the Target Center as the Fever prepared to face the Lynx. Cunningham was booed when she first touched the ball. Then, after Indiana’s 108-100 loss, Clark was asked how she and her teammates were handling the controversy surrounding her teammate. Clark’s answer was simple: their focus was basketball. When the reporter pressed her, she replied, “I just answered.”

Even Clark’s attempt to stay above the controversy kept failing. After she declined to weigh in directly and said the issue was for leagues and governing bodies to address, commentators including Megyn Kelly and Matt Walsh criticized her as a “coward.”

And after the transgender-athlete controversy had cooled down, Cunningham continued to place herself in the middle of contentious WNBA conversations. During her No Hesitation podcast, she weighed in on A’ja Wilson’s confrontation with a fan during the Fever-Aces playoff series, arguing that Wilson benefited from a double standard and telling the Aces star to “grow up.”

“So if the Fever ever want to go back to being a basketball team again and follow the lead of rivals openly clashing with the forces trying to hijack their league, then Cunningham has to go,” Buckner added.

Buckner also discussed Cunningham’s reputation as a protective teammate, especially toward Clark. That traces back to last season, when Cunningham retaliated after Sheldon poked Clark in the eye during a heated game against the Connecticut Sun.

Late in the game, Cunningham tracked down Sheldon and wrapped her arms around her to prevent her from getting the shot off. Following that entanglement, tensions boiled over as three players got ejected from the game, including Cunningham and Sheldon. Regardless, Cunningham, who was now nicknamed the “enforcer” by fans, did not back down while addressing the play later on. Per Buckner, though, such occurrences have ended up attracting the wrong fan base.

“So, Cunningham shouldn’t be muted. She can serve up hot takes on her podcast about Wilson needing to “grow up” all she wants. She just needs to do it on another team. Cunningham might be content gold, but she’s not nearly worth the trouble for a franchise struggling to keep basketball first. When you add in the crowd that Cunningham has attracted this season, it’s as though the Fever have been reduced to performing in the background while the world’s most contentious Thanksgiving dinner drags on,” Buckner added.

Buckner argued that the fallout extended beyond Clark, pointing to White’s comments about relying on her therapist amid online criticism and writing that Kelsey Mitchell had been “ducking her social media messages.”

White has previously acknowledged how difficult the intense attention surrounding the Fever can be, telling ESPN: “There’s an infatuation with our team, and there’s an infatuation with some of our players, and there’s a lot of negativity that surrounds anything that’s different from what the fandom wants to see”. 

Regarding where Cunningham should go next, Buckner wrote, “Go to Chicago, or Portland. Or maybe Toronto could use a 30-year-old unrestricted free agent who averages fewer than 8 points a game”.

Not everyone agrees with Buckner, though. OutKick’s Matt Calkins argued that Cunningham is an effective bench player, and “her three-point percentage (.419) being fifth in the WNBA this season and her true-shooting percentage (.654) being third”. He added that Las Vegas won in the first round because it was the better team. Not because of “fans wearing XX-XY shirts. This was just X’s and O’s.” As for whether Fever fans are “hijacking” the WNBA, Calkins said the fans are instead bringing eyes to women’s basketball.

Reassuringly for Cunningham fans, Fever General Manager Amber Cox had different thoughts on whether Cunningham should be retained or not.

During her exit interview, Cox was asked about the futures of Kelsey Mitchell and Sophie Cunningham. When asked whether Cunningham’s “outside stuff” influences how the Fever evaluated her, Cox replied with a resounding, “No.” Immediately, she switched to talking about Mitchell’s future with the franchise.

But Cox eventually elaborated on Cunningham’s importance to Stephanie White’s team.

“Sophie’s had two really productive years for us in terms of shooting the basketball. She is a really solid leader in the locker room, a great connector. She brings levity, but also brings a lot of experience, and she’s serious and is an important voice in our locker room when we need it.”

“You know, when we really need to lock in. So again, she’s an unrestricted free agent, so we look forward to having those conversations.” Cox concluded.

With Cunningham now an unrestricted free agent, it will be interesting to see if and when the “enforcer’s” career trajectory takes a turn.