DiJonai Carrington Ejected for Flagrant Foul on Sophie Cunningham, Posts ‘White Privilege’ at Fever in WNBA Firestorm

DiJonai Carrington’s night in Chicago went from a hot start to a national flashpoint in a matter of seconds. The Sky guard was ejected from Saturday’s 90-86 loss to the Indiana Fever after a hard foul on Sophie Cunningham was upgraded to a flagrant 2, and she wasted no time firing back — posting “WHITE PRIVILEGE” in all caps on Threads and tagging the Fever’s account before the first half was even over.

Carrington, a 28-year-old guard/forward who signed a one-year deal with the Sky over the offseason after being dealt from Connecticut to Dallas and then Minnesota last year, had only recently returned from a left foot injury that cost her the end of the 2025 season. She’d been building momentum in her first three games back, averaging nearly 12 points off the bench, and looked sharp again Saturday with eight points in just four minutes of action before her afternoon ended abruptly.

The Foul That Changed the Game

With about two minutes left in the first quarter, Cunningham broke away for a transition layup when Carrington chased her down from behind and swiped downward, catching the Fever guard across the face and head with her forearm and sending her to the floor. The basket counted, and officials initially called a standard foul before a video review upgraded the contact to a flagrant 2 — a designation that carries an automatic ejection under WNBA rules due to the unnecessary and excessive nature of the contact. Cunningham was livid in the aftermath, exchanging words with Carrington before teammate Makayla Timpson stepped in to restrain her. Cunningham was not assessed a technical for the exchange and calmly sank the resulting flagrant free throw.

From the locker room, Carrington escalated things further, posting the “WHITE PRIVILEGE” message on Threads and later sharing the date of the teams’ next meeting — August 23 — accompanied by a smiley emoji on X. The posts spread rapidly across social media, fueling the exact kind of trending storm that pushed the incident, and the WNBA at large, to the top of the conversation over the weekend.

A Rivalry Already Running Hot

The timing only sharpened the reaction. Cunningham has spent recent weeks at the center of a separate, unrelated firestorm after comments she made in an ESPN feature about transgender athletes in women’s sports, comments she has since defended publicly while asking media and fans to shift the spotlight back to basketball. Whether or not Carrington’s post was directly tied to that ongoing debate, the collision of the two storylines turned a routine flagrant foul into one of the most talked-about moments of the WNBA season.

The loss extended Chicago’s skid against Indiana to eight straight games and dropped the Sky to 12-20 on the season, sitting well outside the postseason picture with just a handful of games remaining. Kelsey Mitchell and Caitlin Clark combined for 53 points to power the Fever, though Indiana didn’t escape unscathed — Clark picked up her eighth technical foul of the season in the same game, triggering an automatic one-game suspension for the team’s next matchup. As always, bettors tracking the Fever’s playoff push and Chicago’s lottery-bound stretch run should check current markets, and a look at the latest DraftKings promo code offers is worth doing before locking in any WNBA action down the stretch.

What Comes Next

The WNBA routinely reviews flagrant fouls and any accompanying conduct for potential additional discipline beyond the in-game ejection, and no formal league statement on fines or suspensions had been issued as of Saturday night. Given the volume of attention the post generated, a response from the league office is expected in the coming days. Carrington and the Sky won’t have to wait long for a rematch — Chicago and Indiana meet again on August 23, a date Carrington herself flagged before the dust from Saturday’s ejection had even settled. Until then, both sides are left to manage the fallout from a foul-turned-flashpoint that briefly overshadowed everything else happening in the league this weekend, including Minnesota’s Olivia Miles pouring in 26 points, part of a Lynx win over Las Vegas that clinched the WNBA’s best record heading into the stretch run.