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Los Angeles Sparks forward Cameron Brink said she was “icked out” by responses to her team’s request for male practice players.
On March 9, the Sparks shared a poster on X calling for male basketball players to practice with the WNBA team ahead of the 2025 season.
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Entitled “Male Practice Player Tryouts,” the Sparks poster featured Brink alongside her teammates Rickea Jackson, Kelsey Plum, and Dearica Hamby, in uniform. The date, time, and location of the tryouts were listed underneath the four players.
“Do you have what it takes?” the team asked on X/Twitter.
“My confession is I’m really icked out by the potential new practice players,” Brink said during a recent episode of her podcast Straight to Cam.
“Usually we use [University of Southern California] college guys that also [practice with] the women’s team at USC,” Brink explained. However, this year the team was looking to shake things up, only the response they got wasn’t what Brink had expected.
The Sparks’ post was flooded with men making sexually charged comments about Brink and her teammates.
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Brink said: “All the comments are like, ‘Let Cameron Brink back me down,’ or something about Rickea or something about Kelsey.”
One comment on X read: “Trying to let Cam post me up.”
Sparks star Cameron Brink slammed the men making sexual comments about her team’s call for male practice partners (Getty Images)
“Having to sign a waiver to get The Brinks Truck backed into you is diabolical work,” a second wrote.
A third commented: “Hell yea, I just want to guard Miss Jackson!”
“I’m bout to get soooo many blocking fouls,” another wrote.
“Who are we trusting coming into this gym?” Brink asked. “I’m not boxing anyone out. Lynne [Roberts], our new coach, is going to be screaming at me for not rebounding but I’m not boxing out anyone.”
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Some online commenters also left sexist remarks, claiming the Sparks players wouldn’t stand a chance against male competition.
“WNBA would get smoked by any tall athletic average male player. Blow bye blow bye dunk dunk. Get good playing other women first,” one person wrote, while another said: “Y’all gonna get smoked.”
“Boys high school team would smoke you fakers,” a third remarked.
The Sparks currently rank sixth in the Western Conference of the WNBA with a record of 8 wins and 32 losses.
Brink was the second overall pick in the 2024 WNBA draft. She joined the Sparks after winning the NCAA championship with Stanford University in her fourth year.
