Ex-NBA Player Royce White Becomes 2nd Man To Declare For WNBA Draft This Week – But Motivation Is GOP Senate Primary Bid

Royce White, the former NBA first-round pick now running for U.S. Senate in Minnesota, announced Friday that he’s declaring for the 2027 WNBA Draft — framing the move as a statement rather than a genuine career pivot. “I identify as a sometimes identifying transgender woman,” White said, a line clearly designed to provoke rather than describe an actual gender identity.

The timing wasn’t coincidental. White’s announcement landed the same day fellow former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom made an almost identical declaration, and the pairing made clear this was a coordinated bit of political theater rather than two athletes independently chasing a second act in women’s professional basketball.

Both men are using the stunt to needle the ongoing national fight over transgender participation in women’s sports, a debate that has become a flashpoint in conservative politics and, by extension, in White’s own Senate primary campaign.

Nothing about the announcement carries any competitive weight. Neither White nor Kanter Freedom has filed formal paperwork with the WNBA, and league rules don’t allow a public remark to place a player in the draft pool, let alone secure a roster spot or contract. In practical terms, the declarations changed nothing about either man’s basketball status — White remains a candidate for office, not a prospective pro athlete testing his skills against WNBA talent.

The league’s players didn’t let the comments pass quietly. The WNBPA, the union representing WNBA athletes, issued a statement condemning the remarks as transphobic, pushing back against what it characterized as an attempt to mock transgender identity for political gain rather than engage with the substance of the athletic-eligibility debate.

White’s basketball résumé gives the stunt a bit of extra reach: he was a first-round pick in the 2012 NBA Draft, giving him name recognition well beyond his current political ambitions. That history has made his commentary a bigger story than it might otherwise be, even though nothing in his announcement reflects an actual plan to play professional women’s basketball.

For now, the episode functions mostly as a proxy fight — a way for two former athletes with political ambitions to inject themselves into a contentious cultural debate using their basketball credibility as a platform.