INDIANAPOLIS — Nine days after the Indiana Fever and Phoenix Mercury faced off in a game that resulted in one player injured, another suspended and a coach blasting the officials, Caitlin Clark finally had a chance to respond to it all on Friday.
Clark, who missed the Fever’s most recent game with a back injury and will miss the next one for the same reason, hadn’t spoken to reporters in over a week due to her injury. But before Indiana practiced at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Friday, she spoke for over 10 minutes.
Her opening remarks lasted over 5 1/2 minutes and covered a lot of ground. “I did think it was a flagrant foul,” Clark said at one point.
“I think we really need to do a better job protecting the people in this league,” she added at another.
Mixed in were comments about the need to improve officiating and updates about her back. But her focus was mainly frustration, and for many reasons: that this topic dragged on, that headlines aren’t correctly portraying what she feels, and that harassment of any kind is unacceptable.
It all began in the second quarter of the game against the Mercury on June 24. Clark drove to the basket, then stumbled in the paint. As she fell, two Mercury players reached down for the basketball, which was exposed and sitting there for a steal or jump ball opportunity.
Clark, on her way to the floor, rolled a pass out to center/forward Aliyah Boston on the right wing. Then Mercury star Alyssa Thomas crashed into, and onto, Clark, making contact with her groin and neck areas.
The WNBA would later call Thomas’ action “recklessly making contact with her fist to the throat area of Caitlin Clark.” No foul was called on the play in real time, though. The game continued and Boston missed a 3-pointer.
In the third quarter, Clark took a three and landed on Mercury forward Valeriane Ayayi‘s foot. The officials called a foul, then reviewed the play, as Clark’s follow-through caught Ayayi. But no flagrant fouls were awarded and the play wasn’t upgraded.
Later, Clark left the game with a back injury and hasn’t played since. No specific play has been identified as the reason for that exit.
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Clark took hits, and the fact that neither of those two plays were called flagrants had Fever head coach Stephanie White furious postgame. “It was egregious,” she said. White was alerted to the contact to Clark’s neck at halftime of the game, then told the officials about it.
“You’ve gotta call it. It’s absolutely egregious and utterly disrespectful,” White added.
The following day, the WNBA retroactively issued Thomas a Flagrant 2 foul, then suspended her for a game. Phoenix ended up winning both the game that the foul occurred in and the game that Thomas missed on June 27 against the Toronto Tempo.
“Player safety should be paramount in our league. We appreciate the WNBA’s review of last night’s incident and the action taken. Right now our focus is on Caitlin and our entire team as we prepare for Saturday,” Kelly Krauskopf, the Fever’s president of basketball and business operations, said in a team-issued statement after the league’s ruling.
White said that she was thankful the league went back and reviewed the play. But she, like so many, hopes for better real-time officiating in the future.
“The biggest thing for me is that we have to see it in real time,” she said. “… These are things that we can’t miss in real time. We’ve got to be better. I think I’m pretty consistent in messaging that we need consistency.”
More on this story from The IX Sports:
- The IX Sports Podcast Basketball Edition: Liberty win Commissioner’s Cup and Alyssa Thomas speaks out
- ‘The league has to be better’: Alyssa Thomas calls out WNBA after receiving threats over Caitlin Clark incident
- How the Phoenix Mercury reacted to Alyssa Thomas’ suspension
- The IX Sports Podcast Basketball Edition: Alyssa Thomas’ suspension, Caitlin Clark and WNBA injuries
Clark and Thomas both missed their teams’ games on June 27. Clark didn’t practice until later in the following week, but Thomas addressed reporters in Phoenix on Tuesday.
Thomas’ stated frustrations were less about the suspension itself and more the process and the fan reaction. She shared that WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert still hadn’t reached out about the situation and that Thomas herself only found out about the suspension 10 minutes before it was announced.
Player and coach frustration with the league’s communication and response time has been a developing topic all season. That was no different here. Thomas then shared that her life has been threatened and her address has been leaked.
“Our families are being threatened, kids are being threatened, people are sending racial slurs, and all types of stuff,” Thomas said. “There’s a difference between trolling and hatred, and the hatred that we’re experiencing over a play that honestly was a complete accident; no one even knew what happened. It was just unfortunate; the league has to be better.”
On Wednesday, White addressed Thomas’ comments and condemned that behavior from fans.
“It’s absolutely unacceptable. I think as a league, as a whole, there’s been so much more toxicity, racism, homophobia, straight-out nonsense, hate nonsense. It is absolutely unacceptable,” White said in a statement before fielding questions. “Most of this coming from the online community. Most of this, in my heart of hearts, I believe is not coming from WNBA fans, Indiana Fever fans. I believe that this is people who are using our league, using our players, to further divisive agendas. It’s not acceptable.”
To White, the league is about inclusiveness and competitiveness. This situation became about neither.
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And so for Clark, between her injury, her coach blasting refs, her team president making a statement on player safety and Thomas receiving threats, she had a lot to address on Friday.
Clark hopes for more investment into officials in the future — better pay, better technology, better treatment overall. Those things will help with quality and consistency.
“Our reffing just needs to be better. And it’s tough,” she said. “Obviously, the refs are in a really difficult spot. It’s one of the hardest jobs in the world, in my opinion, to make calls. All you do is get yelled at the whole time by everybody.”
Clark also expressed disappointment about the harassment that came as a result of the situation.
“The harassment, the hate, none of that is OK,” she said. “That goes for the opposing team we play, that goes for my teammates, that goes for my coaches. There should never be a question of character. I’ve always stood up here and said that, and that’s truly what I believe. That’s how I was raised. None of that is OK, and I don’t want anybody to ever experience that.
“I think it can be really frustrating to me at times, and I think it’s difficult. I think a lot of people sometimes think I’m a robot. I’m not a robot. I have emotions, I have feelings, and it can be really difficult to go through a lot of that. I’m 24 years old, trying to navigate a lot. And I think at times — I’ve been in this world for four years now, and you would never change any of it. But there are times that it is hard, and there are times that it probably affects me a little bit more than I do put on.”
One issue Clark had is how long the story dragged on. She was watching WNBA action on Sunday night, and there was discussion about the play involving her and Thomas. That was four days after the incident, and Clark felt like it subtracted from the spotlight on the game that was being played.
She called it a disservice to the league. She also addressed her frustrations related to the reaction.
“I think people just using my name in ways that are just inappropriate,” Clark said. “A lot of people, you don’t know me. You don’t know who I am. … Talk about if it was a flagrant or not, but everything that came after that is confusing to me. And it’s not acceptable.”
The Fever and Mercury will play again in Phoenix on Thursday. It will be their last regular-season meeting and could be when Clark returns from injury. She will be out on Sunday against the Las Vegas Aces because of her back but hopes to return in the Fever’s two games afterward.
The Fever could certainly use Clark, but they’ll try to get by without her for just the third time this season on Sunday. When she heals, Clark and the Fever hope the public focus goes back to the basketball being played.
