The Indiana Fever can never play a normal basketball game

CHICAGO — The Indiana Fever exist in parallel universes within the WNBA, serving both as a fringe championship contender and a conduit for a massive surge in outside attention that often feels like it’s about anything other than basketball. One week, the Fever are playing overtime thrillers and breaking individual league scoring records. The next, they’re the subject of a congressional letter about policing hard fouls, and at the center of a national conversation about the place of trans women in professional sports. NBA commissioner Adam Silver referred to Caitlin Clark as a “political football” for both sides to kick, and that’s becoming increasingly true of the entire organization.

The Fever can never play a normal game, and that’s particularly the case when they face the Chicago Sky. ESPN made this a spotlight matchup of “WNBA Rivals Week” even after the Sky traded Angel Reese — Clark’s media-made nemesis — over the offseason to the Atlanta Dream. The atmosphere felt heightened heading into Saturday afternoon as the two teams faced off, whether it was because of the national TV cameras, the tension of the regional rivalry, or the twin rallies for and against Sophie Cunningham’s views outside the arena — that materialized in, like, 30 people participating, total.

It didn’t even take a quarter for Sky-Fever to get weird, producing a moment that overshadowed Indiana’s 90-86 win and threatens to further charge the discourse around the league heading into the playoffs.

DiJonai Carrington came off the Chicago bench to score eight points in four minutes. When teammate Elizabeth Williams turned the ball against a double team, Carrington raced back in transition to try to defend the Fever fastbreak. Her block attempt connected squarely with Sophie Cunningham’s head, and no part of the ball. The refs reviewed it, and determined it was a Flagrant-2 foul, meaning Carrington’s night was over.

The media would have projected intentions onto Carrington’s foul even if she didn’t comment on it, but she only gave the news cycle more ammunition when she went back to the locker room.

Minutes after the ejection, Carrington posted on Threads with a statement that caused everyone in the gym to wonder if it was actually real.

Sky head coach Tyler Marsh was asked about Carrington’s post after the game, and looked perplexed listening to the question. He said this was the first he was hearing about it, and it’s easy to believe he wasn’t checking Threads during the game.

While Cunningham said she thought the foul was intentional after the game, Fever coach Stephanie White said she didn’t believe the foul was intentional and said “no one is going to walk in for an easy layup.”

Cunningham had pleaded with the media a few weeks earlier to keep the conversation to basketball, which reeked of the “we’re all trying to find the guy who did this” meme. Maybe the hard foul took her out of the game mentally, because Cunningham was not at her best on Saturday, finishing -28 in 17 minutes in a four-point win.

There are plenty of basketball storylines that could be talked about. Eight teams make the playoffs in the WNBA, and the Fever are currently the No. 4 seed with 12 games left. Clark was fantastic in the game, finishing with 26 points and 11 assists on 5-of-6 shooting from three. It’s the eighth game of her brief pro career with at least 25 points, 10 assists, and five made threes, while the rest of the WNBA has four such games in league history.

Kelsey Mitchell seems like the one Fever player who exists totally outside of the ongoing political ping-pong match, and all she does is get buckets. Mitchell iced the win with a nasty step-back three, and finished with 27 points on 50% shooting from the field. She’s scored 20+ points in 16 consecutive games, a new WNBA record. She is perhaps the best two-guard in the world, and one of the most electric scorers in the broader basketball universe. Those who don’t follow the sport super closely would probably be shocked to see the Fever are much, much better with Mitchell on the floor than Clark, though these numbers come with obvious caveats.

The Fever came to Chicago needing to find some reassurance after losing a heartbreaker to the Las Vegas Aces two days earlier. Clark missed a pair of free throws down the stretch, which allowed Chelsea Gray to hit a buzzer-beater to force overtime. In OT, Clark tried to iso A’Ja Wilson with a chance to seal the win, but Wilson forced a turnover and kicked it out to Gray for the game-winner. Clark took the blame after the loss. The win against the Sky probably wasn’t as easy as it should have been. In many ways, this team is still searching for answers as it enters the last leg of the regular season.

Clark’s third season has been fascinating after injuries washed away most of her second year. She certainly hasn’t ascended to becoming the best player in the league as some have expected, but she’s still really good most of the time, and totally unguardable on occasion when she has the three ball dropping like it was Saturday. At the same time, her constant whining at the refs is just as exhausting as the discourse around her, and it’s possible she’s already been passed by guards who entered the league after her in Paige Bueckers and Olivia Miles.

Cunningham’s celebrity seems unlikely to dim anytime soon. Her comments have caused scammers like Enes Kanter and Royce White to say they’re entering the WNBA draft as trans women — never mind that neither are trans, or transitioning. The league is kowtowing to the right with the creation of a special task force, which feels especially disappointing because of how uncomplicated all this could be if the WNBA felt comfortable saying it supports trans people and objects to the right trying to exploit the league’s increasing popularity to further its own hateful agenda. When the same losers framing their anti-trans push as “protecting women’s sports” are also offering boys high school teams $10 million to face the WNBA champs, the grift of it all becomes obvious.

It felt like every fan inside the United Center was either wearing a Clark t-shirt or a “protect trans kids” t-shirt. Those aren’t two sides in opposition of each other, but sometimes it feels that way at this especially strange moment in WNBA history.