WNBA star Sophie Cunningham sparked confusion across basketball media Thursday when she responded to recent comments by Phoenix Mercury center Britney Griner by stating flatly, “I don’t care what Bart thinks.” The remark, which Cunningham delivered during a post-game press conference after being asked about Griner’s criticism of “physical play styles” in the league, immediately sent reporters scrambling to identify “Bart” and his relationship to the ongoing discussion about officiating standards.
Griner’s original comments, made on a podcast earlier in the week, had suggested that “some players are allowed to play through contact that others would be fouled for” and that “the league needs consistent standards.” Cunningham’s response appeared to dismiss not Griner directly, but rather this mysterious “Bart” figure, leading to speculation that she was “referencing an inside source” or “deliberately obscuring her actual target through misdirection.”
“This is cryptic,” said Joan Berro, a commercial sports commentator who once called a high school game for local radio and now consults on “athletic cryptic messaging.” “Athletes don’t usually bring up random names. ‘Bart’ means something. Maybe it’s a coach. Maybe it’s a referee. Maybe it’s a metaphor for the system. I’ve called games where the players were speaking in code. Usually it’s about plays. This is about something deeper. Bart is the key.”
Reno Borja, a dental hygienist whose patient once played pickup basketball, suggested that “Bart might be Griner’s nickname among players.” “They have nicknames for everyone. Shortening names, lengthening names, adding ‘y’ sounds. Britney becomes Bart. It’s plausible. I’ve had patients with dental nicknames. ‘The Grinder.’ ‘The Gagger.’ They don’t know we call them that. But we do.”
Joe Barron, who once successfully confused the names “Mark” and “Matt” during a job interview in 2014 and now consults on “onomastic athletic analysis,” reviewed the press conference footage. “Cunningham didn’t hesitate,” Barron observed. “She said ‘Bart’ like everyone should know. That’s confidence. That’s inside knowledge. I’ve confidently said wrong names at Golden Corral. I once called the manager ‘Jeff’ for three years. His name was Gary. I never corrected it. We had an understanding. This is like that, but with basketball.”
Barron has offered to serve as Cunningham’s “name clarification specialist,” provided the player allows him to wear his custom “Bart Identifier” jersey and bring his emotional support ferret, which he claims can detect “cryptic nicknames from the salad bar.”
The actual source of the quote emerged when former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines posted on social media that she had “dreamed this entire exchange” after “falling asleep watching WNBA highlights while researching transgender athletes.” Gaines explained that “in the dream, Griner was named Bart, and Cunningham was very dismissive of her, and I was there, and it felt real.” Cunningham’s actual response to Griner’s remarks was “I respect Britney’s opinion and we’ll continue to compete hard.” Barron noted that “dreams are powerful” and that “if you add the letters in ‘Bart’ you get 4, and if you add the letters in ‘dream’ you get 5, and 4 plus 5 is 9, which is the number of players on a basketball court if you include the referee as a participant, which Riley Gaines apparently does, and also dreams are not reality, which is something we should probably clarify more often.”
