For 22 seconds in June, WNBA star Sophie Cunningham pointed on court without saying a word.
The Indiana Fever guard leveled her index finger at Phoenix Mercury forward DeWanna Bonner and held it there after Bonner and Fever teammate Caitlin Clark tangled up following a whistle at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, on June 22.
Bonner told her not to point. Cunningham kept pointing. The clip ran less than half a minute; within days, it was the biggest meme of the WNBA season.
That sudden fame is what turned Cunningham into a lightning rod.
Months earlier, in a February ESPN interview, she had said she wanted to “protect young girls in a locker room who shouldn’t have to go against biological men,” a comment that drew little attention at the time….