The Risk in Being More Than an Athlete |
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Is the WNBA’s Natasha Cloud “Getting Kapped”?
The conscience of the 2026 sports world remains unsigned. Is she being blackballed?
The Risk in Being More Than an Athlete
Natasha Cloud became one of only a few professional athletes to speak about Gaza. Now she can’t find a WNBA team.
There is an expression I have heard from young athletes: “getting Kapped.” To get “capped” is slang for being shot and killed. To get “Kapped” is to be blackballed from your sports league for being politically outspoken. The slang derives from San Francisco 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who took a knee during the national anthem in protest of racist police violence and subsequently lost his career. Among players, he has become more of a cautionary tale than an enduring inspiration. If he could get “Kapped,” then you could be next.
Enter Natasha Cloud. The free-agent guard known across the WNBA universe as Tasha, averaged 10 points and five assists last year with the New York Liberty while also becoming a fan favorite for her charisma and rousing defensive play. She was broadly praised for her leadership on and off the court.
And yet, with the 2026 season about to begin, Cloud finds herself unsigned. Given Cloud’s skillset and championship pedigree, USA Today called her place in free-agent purgatory, “genuinely baffling.” But in the current athletic environment, it is perhaps not that baffling at all. Maybe the beloved Cloud is “getting Kapped.”
Cloud has always aspired to be more than an athlete and use her platform for social good. She has spoken out on a host of issues, but most notably in recent years she has advocated for a free Palestine. In the face of Israel’s genocidal war, the people of Gaza have had few allies in the US sports world quite like Cloud. In May 2024, Cloud told the ESPN site Andscape, “There’s a genocide happening. People are scared to use that word—it is what it is. It’s a genocide. It’s ethnic cleansing. It’s intentional.… We’re not paying attention.”
As Andscape breaks down, Cloud started speaking out for the Palestinian people on October 11 2023, just two days after Israel ordered a “total siege” of Gaza following the Hamas attacks on October 7. She then posted: “Being honest. I haven’t known what to say. And that makes me a hypocrite. Because I am constantly trying to encourage people to speak up for my........