Phoenix Mercury head coach Nate Tibbetts said Tuesday night it’s up to the league office when it comes to the WNBA’s transgender eligibility policy, even as Charles Barkley blasted Adam Silver and Cathy Engelbert for not stopping the issue sooner. The whole mess lays bare how a handful of league officials, conference bosses, and judges keep deciding who gets to play while the people on the floor are told to wait, comply, or get used as talking points.
Barkley, a Basketball Hall of Famer and former Phoenix Suns star, said on a podcast earlier this week that he was "disappointed in Adam Silver and Cathy Engelbert" for failing to nip the transgender athlete issue in the bud when they had the chance. Tibbetts was asked about those comments before Phoenix’s 94-84 loss to the Washington Mystics and pushed the question back up the chain. "Yeah, I’m going to leave that to the league office," Tibbetts said. "That’s their job. We’re here to play a basketball game here tonight."
OutKick asked the WNBA and NBA for a reaction to Tibbetts’ comments but has yet to hear back. Silence from the top. That’s part of the routine too.
Who Gets to Decide
The WNBA’s eligibility policy is opaque at best. The league’s collective bargaining agreement says that "only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA." But it doesn’t include specific language on whether players who are born male and identify as female could compete in the league. That gap leaves the league office with enormous power and everyone else guessing.
Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White have since declared their intentions to enter the WNBA Draft. Cathy Engelbert responded by denouncing those she claimed are trying to "sow divisiveness" over the transgender issue. "People are trying to use the league to sow divisiveness," Engelbert said earlier this month. "We're being the center of political football for people who have never watched the WNBA, never have written about the WNBA or reported on the WNBA."
The league’s language, the commissioner’s complaints, and the public arguments around the issue all show the same thing: a closed system trying to manage a fight it created by keeping the rules vague and the power centralized.
Courts, Conferences, and the New Gatekeepers
College athletics is reeling after the SEC and Big Ten created new guidelines governing the eligibility of athletes who planned to join teams this week following injunctions and temporary restraining orders granted by multiple judges. On Tuesday, both conferences, who will soon be joined by the ACC and Big 12, voted to enact new rules that would prevent athletes who have participated in professional sports from reentering the college landscape.
The decision comes after players in several states were granted injunctions or temporary restraining orders allowing them to play this season. Most of the lawsuits stem from the NCAA’s new eligibility guidelines, which give athletes five years to play five seasons of college athletics. Under the new policies, any athlete who has signed with a professional team, declared for the NFL Draft or participated in any type of professional training camp will be ineligible for conference competition.
The SEC made its own move on Tuesday evening, when presidents and chancellors held a vote on how to move forward with the new guidelines tied to these ongoing cases. The conference’s rules cover athletes who previously declared for the NFL, NBA, or WNBA Draft and did not appropriately withdraw, signed a contract with an NFL or professional football league, NBA/G-League, or WNBA or affiliate team, or were listed on an NFL or other professional football league, NBA-G-League, or WNBA or affiliate roster.
The SEC also gave Greg Sankey the power to enforce these rules, including suspension of coaches and monetary fines to each school that violates them. That’s the apparatus in plain sight: administrators writing punishments, schools carrying the cost, and players caught in the middle of a fight over who controls access.
The Legal Fight Keeps Spreading
According to attorney Ryan Downton, who represents a number of players, they are currently "working on a legal strategy" on how to move forward against both the NCAA and participating conferences that have enacted these new guidelines. "The SEC’s actions put the NCAA in contempt of multiple court orders," Downton told OutKick-Fox News on Tuesday night. "It is cartel-like conduct when NCAA conferences attempt to create their own spur of the moment rules in response to Courts enjoining those same rules at the NCAA level"
Multiple sources told OutKick that the vote within the SEC was unanimous, though that does not mean there will not be legal action taken over the next few days. Downton said, "We are still working on a legal strategy."
At the forefront of this fight is LSU coach Lane Kiffin, even though he was not the first coach or team to bring in a player who has in some way competed at the NFL level. Over the last few days, Kiffin has explained his reasoning for recruiting athletes who have already gained NFL experience. "So, you know, we have you know made a decision to recruit some kids around the country, and through these multiple injunctions around the country, which, this is not a first time in college sports, a group of players were granted a fifth year of eligibility, in multiple sports. And through them winning their injunction and entry into the portal, they’re available to recruit," Kiffin noted on Monday. "So ourselves, like many places around the country, are recruiting them. At the end of the day, you know, because of these rulings, they’re either going to play for you or they’re going to play somewhere else around the country. So, we made a decision to recruit them, like probably most people are."
That includes former Ole Miss football players Dae'Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris, who are both set to join the LSU roster thanks to a ruling from the 19th District Court of Louisiana that granted them an additional season of eligibility. There have been plenty of others who have gone down this route, winning cases in state courts that allow them to return this season. Texas offensive lineman Cole Hutson is another, who sued the NCAA in a Texas court for an additional season.
Attorney Darren Heitner, who represents Dae'Quan Wright, said the SEC should abide by the order granted by the 19th District Court of Louisiana. "He should be rostered by LSU and be a great contributor for the Tigers. The SEC should heed the court order recently issued by a Louisiana judge," Heitner said.
The question now is whether LSU, and others, will move forward in bringing in athletes knowing that it would violate conference rules but still be legal in the eyes of the courts that granted them injunctions. That’s the real machinery here: one set of rulers saying yes, another set saying no, and the players left to live inside the contradiction.