Another WNBA game, another green sex toy on the court. This time it happened Thursday night at Crypto.com Arena, where the Atlanta Dream were busy dismantling the Los Angeles Sparks 124-88.
Just under three minutes left in the third quarter, Sparks forward Jihyun Park stepped to the free-throw line. That is when the object came flying out of Section 111 and landed near the paint.
Angel Reese saw it immediately. She pointed the guy out from the Dream bench, and cameras caught a man in a Luka Doncic jersey hustling up the aisle. Security got him out of there fast.
This is not a one-off anymore. This is a pattern.
The stunts started earlier in 2025 at a Dream game against the Golden State Valkyries. One of them hit Fever guard Sophie Cunningham. The original thrower, Delbert Carver, was arrested. Sparks head coach Lynne Roberts called the whole thing “ridiculous, dumb, and stupid,” and she was being polite about it.
Since then, copycats have popped up at Bills games and hockey rinks. It has become a dumb little internet challenge that keeps interrupting real athletes doing real jobs.
The WNBA has already issued a warning. Any fan caught doing this gets ejected on the spot, banned for a minimum of one year, and could face criminal charges. That is a start. It is not enough.
Ban them for life. Every single one of them. There is no version of this that is funny or clever. It is a group of grown men who think tossing a novelty item onto a basketball court is a personality.
Meanwhile, the actual game was a bloodbath. Atlanta scored 124 points against a Sparks team that had no answers on either end. The Dream have been one of the best stories in the league this year, and their reward for a 36-point road win is a headline about a sex toy.
Think about that from the players’ perspective. Angel Reese, Rhyne Howard, and the rest of that Dream roster are playing some of the best basketball of their careers, and this is the news cycle they wake up to. Jihyun Park had to stop shooting a free throw so an usher could remove a piece of trash from the court.
The league is growing at a pace nobody predicted three years ago. Ratings are up, arenas are packed, and stars like Reese, Caitlin Clark, and Paige Bueckers are pulling in casual fans who never watched a WNBA game before. That is the story.
Instead, we are talking about a guy in a Luka jersey doing his best impression of a punchline. Enough. Lifetime bans, publish the names, and let the rest of the copycats know exactly what they are risking before they buy a ticket.
The Dream and Sparks tip off again soon. Hopefully next time the biggest thing thrown is a shot from beyond the arc.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
