WNBA ‘forced to be reactive’ amid radio silence as Caitlin Clark accusations threaten to get out of hand

The WNBA has made the decision to stay very quiet in light of recent actions.

A foul-riddled contest between the Indiana Fever and Phoenix Mercury in their two meetings last week ended badly for WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark.

Getty

While the Fever won the first of the back-to-back contest against Phoenix 86-77, the Mercury won 111-109 in the second, but the game wasn’t remembered for its final result, but more for the hit on Clark by veteran Alyssa Thomas.

In the second quarter, Clark was driving into the lane, where contact was made by a defender which caused her to fall down to her side.

Both Thomas and former Fever player DeWanna Bonner dove for the ball, where Thomas appeared to knee Clark in the groin, albeit by accident.

However, as she attempted to rise to her feet, the six-time WNBA All-Star made contact with her fist to Clark’s throat, but a foul was not called by the on-court officials at the time.

Only when the play was reviewed after the game – after the league was called out by Fever coach Stephanie White – was a flagrant foul 2 penalty applied, handing Thomas a one-game suspension.

Aside from the announcement of the decision, the WNBA has been radio silent on the issue which continues to gather pace.

Sportscaster and veteran radio host Dan Patrick revealed on Friday that his producers had tried to contact the league office for a statement, but to no avail.

Their silence has ultimately allowed for the media to direct the narrative, which Patrick believes has allowed the situation to spiral “out of control.”

“Just a note to the WNBA, have somebody available,” Patrick said Friday on his show. “Yesterday, we’re one of the few outlets that called looking for a quote. We couldn’t even get a quote out of anybody. And Paulie was working on that most of the show. Like, have somebody available, alright?

“You have to answer tough questions sometimes. And this is a time when you have to answer a tough question. But have somebody available. That’s all. Have somebody available for comment.

Getty

Getty

“Everybody was traveling; nobody was available yesterday. And then it spirals out of control, and it gets even worse. And then everybody’s got an opinion about this. Even people who probably didn’t see the game.”

Patrick also made it abundantly clear that he feels the league needs to have a representative say something just to ensure things don’t materialize further and cause serious harm to Clark, or any other players in the league.

“I just want to make sure this doesn’t get out of hand where she suffers a really bad injury,” he added. “Yesterday, they let it kind of metastasize. And that’s on the WNBA … you can even say, ‘Look we have no comment on that,’ or, ‘We can’t comment on that.’”

Media continue to debate incident

Despite the Fever having played another game since the incident, a 111-87 win over the Los Angeles Sparks with Clark out of action due to a back injury, the media continue to debate that one play from the Mercury game.

ESPN reporter Chiney Ogwumike even played down the whole thing, citing that Clark can sometimes exaggerate contact, while further arguing that the league simply reacted retrospectively due to how a freeze frame of the incident looked to the public.

“This was a magnifier matchup. When you look back at it, Alyssa Thomas and Caitlin Clark, they’re both dominant players, but Alyssa plays on the edge. I know her, and Caitlin, sometimes, embellishes [contact] at times in certain instances,” she said on Sunday.

Getty

“So when you have a scrum, there needs to be a hyper-vigilience. But also, this created a position where the league is now forced to be reactive.

“Instead of having control of, not just calling fouls, now the league is reacting and doing something that it rarely does on a non-call and instituting a suspension.

“To me that was unique, but I’ll lastly say this, because that largely happened because of the optics. In game flow, if you’re watching in game speed, I didn’t really notice too much because people hit the ground all the time.

“But, when narratives are created based off of a freeze-frame, that can create a huge problem, and I do think that the league was reacting to the optics of that image.

“In that situation, if you’re watching it in real time, both players who are known to make their issues known, got up and kept going,” Ogwumike continued. That’s why I have a problem.”

Ogwumike did, however, call out the refs and lack of consistency in officiating on a game-by-game basis.

“There is an imperative to call more fouls, but there is still a lack of situational awareness, or a lack of control of the game by the refs.

“… There’s been a lack of consistency, and this creates a problem in magnifier matchups.

Stay up to date on all things WNBA across our talkSPORT platforms – subscribe to our YouTube channel for the latest news, opinion, exclusive interviews and our daily unfiltered, unscripted show ‘The S* Word, from 8am ET.