ATLANTA — Sophie Cunnigham’s long blonde ponytail drops behind her 6-foot-1 frame. She wears a white headband, a Fever practice shirt, and practice shorts as she shakes my hand.
“Hi, I’m Lexie. Nice to meet you,” she tells me.
Behind her, Lexie Hull stands up from a chair and walks over. She is the same height as Cunningham, wearing the same outfit and headband. She sports the same long blonde ponytail trailing behind her back.
Follow The Sporting News on WhatsApp
“Hello, I’m Sophie, it’s nice to meet you,” she says.
“Nice to meet you both,” I reply. After a short pause, I smile. “Oh, I see what you’re doing here.”
Cunningham and Hull both burst into laughter. Each has introduced themselves as the other.
“We had to test you,” Cunningham says.
I barely passed that test where many others failed. The two Fever players look enough alike that they are oftentimes confused for one another, even by employees of the team.
“It happens all the time,” Hull told me, laughing. “Walking to breakfast, some staff on Gainbridge Fiedlhouse says ‘Good morning Sophie!’”
“It’s literally all the time,” Cunningham added. “We’re kind of used to it by now. Mine was at our game, in the parking garage. The parking attendant was like, ‘Lex, have a great game!’ I said ‘Thank you!’”
Hull has a real identical twin named Lacie who played college basketball alongside her at Stanford. The inside joke is that Cunningham, who joined the Fever this offseason, is the new triplet.
They’ve leaned into what fans and others have said about their uncanny resemblance. Aside from trying to trick this reporter, they’ve posted several comments online about their similarities.
“Seeing double?” Cunningham commented under a photo of her and Hull posted to her Instagram account at the start of training camp.
“mhmmmm 😍😍😍” Hull replied.
Teammates have gotten into the fun too. Under Cunningham and Hull’s comments, Clark added “Little less tanning. A little more bball ladies.”
The two are full of jokes. Cunningham has referred to them online as twins. They’ve posted the exact same comments within a minute of each other on social media.
What is wrong with them 😂😂😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/xrgCsGK3nt
— Amy🤓🤪 (@Amyn222222) May 5, 2025
There’s plenty of material to draw from when it comes to their twinning. The WNBA’s announcers have mixed them up while calling the action. Hull’s mom says that Cunningham looks more like her than her real twin Lacie when the two are on the floor together. Even they get each other confused from time to time.
“We’re not going to get mad at it. It’s funny,” Cunningham told me. “There’s not a lot of blonde-haired girls in our league and the fact that we’re both on the same team, same height, in film sometimes we can’t even tell.”
Their similarities are more than skin-deep. They have common strengths on the floor. They are inseparable during warmups and on the bench, stretching together and going through drills next to each other. And they both enjoy the same things, along with Clark.
“We love basketball. We also love the sun. We love the pool. Love country. Love lake life, love boats,” Cunningham said. “So when I met [Hull and Clark], I was like ‘Oh hell yeah. These are going to be some of my good friends for a really long time.'”
Clark can be a fiery personality. Her six technical fouls during her rookie year were tied for the second-highest in the league.
During her May 22 game against the Dream, she shoved a forearm into defender Rhyne Howard. Clark walked away and told Howard “I’m not scared of you.”
That edge can be a positive, but it’s also something that coaches have tried to control. A constant source of criticism is that Clark’s body language can at times be negative. She threw her arms up in frustration throughout a rough performance in that game in which she missed all five of her 3-pointers and scored just 11 points.
Cunningham and Hull picked her up in that win, both literally and figuratively. There was Cunningham, giving an emphatic high five after a beautiful outlet pass. Hull exchanged constant high-fives with Clark to pick her energy up. She placed a hand on Clark, helping guide her away from Howard during their confrontation.
“It’s huge,” coach Stephanie White said of Hull’s energy after the Fever came away with a tough 81-76 win to improve to 2-1 on the season. “I know a while back, there was a study done in the NBA about how important those [high five] moments are. It doesn’t matter if things are good, things are bad. That little bit of encouragement, great stuff, we got your back, it all matters.”
White has called Cunningham “a light when she comes in and steps into the gym” and tough as nails, adding that the Fever twins impact the game beyond the stat sheet. That was true in the win, where both led the team in plus-minus. And their effect on Clark has extended beyond the court.
Clark told reporters at the start of the season that “the vibes are really good.” Cunningham, who has been to the WNBA Finals once and made the playoffs in all but one of her six seasons in the league, knows how important that is for a team with championship aspirations.
“When you find teammates that are good, good people, it’s fun to be on a team. You enjoy yourself more, you enjoy coming to work. There’s a lot more to it than just basketball,” she said.
“Those are the championship teams. They have those relationships. You don’t have to be best friends with everyone on the team, but when you have a team that truly loves each other and gets along off the court, it floods onto the court. And I think you see that. I think we have that in our locker room.”
Hull has built that chemistry with Clark over a season of playing together and hanging out off the court. She’s seen Clark extend that competitive fire to couples’ game nights with their partners.
“We’re not flipping the board over, but cards are getting thrown down on the table. We’re arguing, ‘You can’t do this, you can’t do that.’ But it’s fun. It’s all fun and games.”
The two have also seen a different side of Clark, one that isn’t shown as much to the public. The relaxed version of Caitlin Clark. The one that hosted a Cinco de Mayo party for teammates, cooking tacos for everyone along with her boyfriend and playing cards through the evening.
“Caitlin, you gotta get her in a chill environment” Cunningham says. “As elite level athletes, the fans only get to see the super-competitive side of us. You see us in our working environment when you’re dialed in. When you’re off the court, people tend to fall in love with who we are off the court. Because they realize, oh, they are just human. They are actually chill. They’re good, nice people.”
That niceness shows up in a different way on the Fever. Rather than pleasantries, it’s through jokes and jabs. Hull and Cunningham agree that Clark is the best trash-talker on the team.
“Caitlin, her love comes in that form 99 percent of the time, which is great,” Hull told me. “That’s what we love about her.”
“We always talk about how if we’re too nice to you, then we either don’t like you or we’re too comfortable,” Cunningham added. “In our league, if you have a little bit of ball-busting, sh— talking type of thing, that means you love each other. Because if you can’t give each other a hard time, then who knows?”
When Clark posted her media day photos to her Instagram page, Cunningham showed her appreciation in a way that she knew her teammate would appreciate.
“The tan will come… everything else is perf.”
