{"id":41254,"date":"2026-08-12T17:18:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T12:18:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=41254"},"modified":"2026-08-12T17:18:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T12:18:44","slug":"dave-portnoy-wasnt-thrilled-with-stephanie-whites-fiery-pregame-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=41254","title":{"rendered":"Dave Portnoy wasn&#8217;t thrilled with Stephanie White&#8217;s fiery pregame speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2026%2F08%2Fnewspress-collage-4md47jx6m-1786535551217.jpg?quality%3D90%26strip%3Dall%261786521188\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Stephanie White <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/08\/11\/sports\/fever-coach-stephanie-white-fires-back-at-critics-call-for-her-job\/\">went to bat for her players<\/a>, but Caitlin Clark superfan Dave Portnoy isn\u2019t going to bat for the embattled Fever coach.<\/p>\n<p>After White delivered a passionate two-plus-minute rant Tuesday night in defense of herself, Fever players and the WNBA community following <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/08\/10\/sports\/dijonai-carrington-white-privilege-post-not-about-sophie-cunningham-foul\/\">DiJonai Carrington\u2019s hard foul of Indiana\u2019s Sophie Cunningham<\/a> and amid the discussion about the league that has entered the political sphere, Portnoy tweeted his qualms.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am a legit Fever fan. If she just said \u2018I f\u2014-d up the other night. I shoulda defended Sophie (MY PLAYER) and not DJ so I get why our fans our pissed at me\u2019 maybe I can accept the apology. But this didnt (sic) really feel like an apology. More her yelling at us for trying to divide the locker room or something,\u201d Portnoy wrote. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cLike blaming us for DJ tweeting \u2018white privilege\u2019 in the locker room. That\u2019s what is dividing people. Fever fans and players get blamed for everything under the sun. We\u2019re not trying to divide anybody but its Fever vs the world and we want a coach who feels and acts that way.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Dave Portnoy at a 2025 Fever game. <span class=\"credit\">Icon Sportswire via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>White\u2019s message before the Fever\u2019s 106-92 <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/08\/11\/sports\/liberty-have-no-answer-for-caitlin-clark-kelsey-mitchell-in-deflating-loss-to-fever\/\">home win over the Liberty<\/a> on Tuesday attempted to confront the two storylines that are engulfing the league \u2014 and mostly the Fever.<\/p>\n<p>In Sunday\u2019s 90-86 road win over the Sky, Carrington, a former player under White, <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/08\/09\/sports\/fevers-stephanie-white-sticks-up-for-dijonai-carrington-ejection\/\">committed a hard foul<\/a> on Cunningham, whose recent comments about trans athletes have set the league ablaze.<\/p>\n<p>Carrington hit Cunningham across the face and received a flagrant 2, but White said she did not believe that her former player \u201cintentionally\u201d committed the transgression.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>That led to Indiana Lt. Gov Micah Beckwith and others calling out White, with Beckwith even posting that the Fever \u201cneed to let Stephanie White go.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Indiana fans even booed White before the game, with Clark saying she \u201chated\u201d that they did so.<\/p>\n<p>White defended herself Tuesday against those railing against her.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Indiana Fever head coach Stephanie White talks with guard Sophie Cunningham (8) during the first half of a WNBA basketball game against the New York Liberty in Indianapolis on Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026. <span class=\"credit\">AP Photo\/Michael Conroy<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThis isn\u2019t necessarily for those people that are in this room. This is more for the online community that\u2019s trying to create narratives that simply don\u2019t exist, trying to create a fabrication or distortion of who I am, of what I\u2019m about,\u201d White said before her team improved to 21-12. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur players\u2019 success, our players\u2019 health and wellness, our player safety is always a top priority for me. One of the things I pride myself on is my relationships with players. For those who have anything to say about the play in the last game, I didn\u2019t see the play in real time. I went straight to a press conference. I thought the play got called right, thankfully Sophie\u2019s OK. Was it egregious? Absolutely. When you have a chance to watch that, over and over and over on replay, you can see that. I didn\u2019t have that in real time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI take personally any suggestions that I don\u2019t 100 percent always have my player\u2019s back. I ride with them 10 toes down all the time \u2014 all the time. They know that. It\u2019s a shame that we can\u2019t have an opportunity to talk about what great basketball they\u2019re playing because they are f\u2013king playing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The second part of her statement focused on how the WNBA has become highjacked in recent weeks after Cunningham voiced her disapproval for trans athletes possibly playing in the WNBA.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Sophie Cunningham of the Indiana Fever is fouled by DiJonai Carrington of the Chicago Sky during the first half at United Center on Saturday, August 8, 2026, in Chicago, Illinois.  <span class=\"credit\">Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>There are currently no trans athletes in the WNBA.<\/p>\n<p>Former NBA players Enes Kanter <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/08\/09\/sports\/royce-white-adds-another-controversial-post-over-transgender-claims\/\">and Royce White<\/a> have since declared for the WNBA draft, which has taken the discussion from the courts into the highly polarizing political battlefield.<\/p>\n<p>White, who is a member of the LGBTQ+ community, decried those individuals who she believes are spreading \u201chate\u201d and the like.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<p>\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Why The Liberty Released Betnijah Laney-Hamilton &amp; Bet on Marine Fauthoux | Liberty Lately\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MQm4rwZtCBc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThe reality is, with me, I will always lead with love. I will always lead with grace, I will always lead with humility and I will always lead with integrity. Doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019ll always get it right,\u201d White said. \u201cI\u2019m also human. The hate, the fear-mongering, the divisiveness, the stuff that\u2019s trying to hijack our league will not win. It won\u2019t win. We are united, we are connected. We will not be divided. Every day these women put their ass on the line. Every day. When they go low, we go high. Love will win. Grace will win. Humility will win, and kindness will win. I stand by them. I\u2019ll always stand by them. Everybody else can go to hell.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Amid all the drama, the Fever have moved into fourth place in the WNBA and are within striking range of both the third-place Aces and second-place Valkyries.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stephanie White went to bat for her players, but Caitlin Clark superfan Dave Portnoy isn\u2019t going to bat for the embattled Fever coach. After White delivered a passionate two-plus-minute rant Tuesday night in defense of herself, Fever players and the WNBA community following DiJonai Carrington\u2019s hard foul of Indiana\u2019s Sophie Cunningham and amid the discussion&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/newspress-collage-4md47jx6m-1786535551217.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&1786521188&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}