Stephen A. Smith calls for WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert to resign after Napheesa Collier response

Stephen A. Smith called for WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert to resign following the controversy stemming from her response to star player Napheesa Collier. Collier called out the league’s leadership in a lengthy statement following the Minnesota Lynx’s playoff exit.

Engelbert responded with a statement which Smith called “weak.” Based on this entire situation, the First Take host called for the commissioner to step down from her position.

“I want to know how the hell somebody said something like that about you as the Commissioner,” Smith said on First Take. “Whether it was David Stern or Adam Silver or Roger Goodell or Paul Tagliabue, could you imagine? Imagine a commissioner being called out like that directly, and that timid, tepid statement. She looks guilty as hell. And then I’m looking at it, I’m saying, Did you really say that? Did you really say that Caitlin Clark should thank the heavenly stars that she wouldn’t be worth anything if she wasn’t playing in the WNBA? Did you really say that? I’m sitting back on like this girl … I’m listening, because she got very, very specific. 

“And for the commissioner to come back with that, you can’t have her at the negotiating table talking to players, basically Collier said she’s in the way of our growth and our development as a league, not just on the player side, but on the league side. She’s not good for basketball. Nobody questioned Cathy Engelbert’s business acumen now, because we know she knows business … At the end of the day, you have a star player in the league saying the commissioner, this individual, is in the way of all of us. And that was her statement. I believe she should hand in her resignation.”

Collier criticized Engelbert from several angles. First, Collier took aim at the league’s officiating. Collier and the Lynx made headlines on Sunday when they fell to the Phoenix Mercury in the WNBA semifinals.

The game was particularly physical and Collier left the game with an injury. Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve tore into the officiating after the game, claiming it was “malpractice” for the WNBA’s leadership to deem the game’s referees worthy of officiating such an important game. Collier backed her coach on Tuesday.

Stephen A. Smith calls for Cathy Engelbert resignation from WNBA

Collier took her complaints a step further when she questioned the sustainability of the WNBA, as a whole, under Engelbert. Collier pulled the curtain back on personal conversations between her and Engelbert to make her point.

“I also asked how she planned to fix the fact that players like Caitlin [Clark], Angel [Reese], and Paige [Bueckers], who are clearly driving massive revenue for the league, are making so little for their first four years,” Collier said. “Her response was Caitlin should be grateful she makes $60 million off the court because, without the platform that the WNBA gives her, she wouldn’t make anything. And, in that conversation, she told me players should be on their knees thanking their lucky stars for the media rights deal that I got them.”

Engelbert has been the WNBA’s commissioner since 2019. The league has seen a massive increase in popularity the past two years due to young stars such as Caitlin Clark. Now, Collier is wondering aloud if the league’s leadership needs new blood as well.

“Right now, we have the worst leadership in the world,” Collier said. “We serve a league that has shown they think championship coaches and Hall of Fame players are dispensable, and that’s fine. It’s professional sports. But I will not stand quietly by and allow different standards to be applied at the league level.”

Grant Grubbs contributed to this report