Eric Bolte-Imagn Images
Jul 12, 2026; Montreal, Quebec, CAN; Toronto Tempo guard Marina Mabrey (3) reacts and New York Liberty guard-forward Betnijah Laney-Hamilton (44) reaches for the ball during the first half at the Bell Centre.
While all the recent news surrounding Caitlin Clark and Alyssa Thomas may lead you to believe that the WNBA either does not have or does not enforce its rules, we can assure you that’s not true.
In fact, the WNBA made it extremely clear on Sunday that one thing that you cannot do is throw a shoe at your opponent, no matter how physical the game has been.
Unfortunately for New York Liberty veteran Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, she found that out the hard way after she was ejected for launching a shoe at guard Marina Mabrey in a 93-91 loss to the Toronto Tempo.
Status alert: Betnijah Laney-Hamilton has been ejected Sunday.
She threw Jonquel Jones’ shoe at Marina Mabrey.pic.twitter.com/xv8a0RDxKL
— Underdog WNBA (@UnderdogWNBA) July 12, 2026
Betnijah Laney-Hamilton Claims She Didn’t Mean To Hit Marina Mabrey With Shoe
After the game, Laney-Hamilton met with members of the media and explained what happened to cause the incident and subsequent ejection.
Call it plausible deniability if you want, but she actually came up with a pretty strong defense.
“I would never intentionally try to hit someone with a shoe, especially while they’re not looking,” she said. “(My) teammate was without a shoe, so I did my best to try and get it to her. Unfortunately, it did hit someone.
“I know just by the way that things were going throughout the game that it can look a certain way, but that’s just not something that I would personally do … especially in a moment like that where (the) game is on the line.”
New York forward Jonquel Jones had lost her shoe prior to the sequence, and Laney Hamilton claims she was simply returning it.
A side angle does appear to show Laney-Hamilton launching the shoe across the court, so she’d have to have pretty great aim to have hit Mabrey on purpose.
However, Mabrey did not seem overly amused by the incident.
“I’m working on not being rage-baited,” she said.
So, what do we think? Is this WNBA shoe-gate? Or was it just an unfortunate mistake? Let us know in the comments below.