Former WNBA player Angel McCoughtry apologized for her comments about Hailey Van Lith in a video she posted to her Instagram account on Saturday.
McCoughtry was a guest on the “Let Her Shoot” podcast for an episode that was published last week. During the episode, McCoughtry said that Van Lith wouldn’t be in the WNBA if it weren’t for her social media following.
“Take away the followers, just from her talent right now, would she be in the league if she only had 10,000 followers?” McCoughtry asked.
Van Lith, 23, was drafted No. 11 overall by the Chicago Sky in April. She was drafted following a five-year college career where she reached the Elite Eight in every single year. She played for three different schools, beginning her career at Louisville for three years before playing a season each at LSU and TCU. Van Lith was a five-star recruit and top player at every school in college, which is why many scoffed at McCoughtry’s criticism.
On Saturday, McCoughtry backtracked. She said she wasn’t a hater but noted “my mistake I made was giving a point with the wrong delivery. I shouldn’t have used a certain player to make an example of a point I was trying to make. I want to apologize for that, because I was wrong.
“So I’m going to apologize to Hailey for that because you worked hard for everything you got. You deserve it all, plus more,” McCoughtry said.
“The point I was trying to make was players have to advocate for themselves, promote themselves, because you can have a lot of talent like anyone else. But sometimes the player with maybe more following will get in. That’s all I was trying to say. So I apologize for how I delivered that.”
Van Lith has been seeing minutes off the bench for the Sky in her rookie season. She entered play on Saturday averaging 5.2 points in 14.8 minutes per game this season.
You can see video of McCoughtry’s apology and clarification:
