Royce White’s NBA career adds up to three games, nine total minutes in the NBA, and a stat line of zero points, zero rebounds and zero assists, and this week he told the world he’s declaring for the 2027 WNBA Draft.
He’s not doing it alone. Enes Kanter Freedom posted his own declaration video on August 7, saying he’s “simply asking that the current rules be applied equally to everyone — the rules that represent the very values many WNBA players and coaches have publicly advocated for.” White followed hours later, though he maintains he posted his own version roughly three days earlier, around August 4.
Declaring yourself eligible isn’t the same as being draftable.
Neither man has actually filed the paperwork to make it official, which means a training camp invite is still theoretical for both of them. Here’s the video that started it:
https://twitter.com/EnesFreedom/status/2085772139869696032
Start with Enes Kanter Freedom’s NBA career numbers, since they’re the more decorated of the two and still don’t get him within shouting distance of a WNBA roster: 748 games, 11.2 points, zero All-Star nods across eleven NBA seasons that began with him going 3rd overall in the 2011 draft.
Royce White’s NBA career numbers are, if anything, worse. Three games for Sacramento in 2013-14, nine minutes across those three games, and a line so empty it reads like a scoreboard malfunction. The 16th pick in the 2012 draft never got the chance to be anything on an NBA floor.
White says he’d be “unstoppable” in the WNBA and has threatened a discrimination lawsuit if the league turns him down.
I’ve followed the Mercury long enough to know what professional women’s basketball actually looks like, and nine minutes of garbage time from 2013 isn’t it.
Both declarations are understood, by every outlet that’s covered them, as commentary tied to the ongoing debate over transgender eligibility in women’s sports. The WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement specifies only players who are women are eligible, and the league hasn’t publicly detailed criteria beyond that. That’s a debate for a different column.
Swipe Sports already broke down the WNBA rule Kanter invented without needing his career averages to make the point. This piece does, and once you set the Enes Kanter and Royce White WNBA draft stats side by side, the theater collapses under its own box score.
White is also on the ballot in Minnesota’s Republican U.S. Senate primary on August 11, which gives his WNBA declaration a shelf life of about three days before an actual election replaces it as his headline. For the rest of our WNBA coverage, there are players out there genuinely trying to make a roster.
Two guys with zero combined All-Star appearances want to be taken seriously. Sit down.
