In April, fresh off two record-breaking games and decked out in a Prada skirt suit, Caitlin Clark was drafted to the Indiana Fever. The NCAA superstar has been hailed as a game changer for women’s professional basketball, but her first month in the WNBA has been a little rocky. She lost five consecutive games with the Fever and briefly turned a corner this weekend when she banked her first WNBA win over the L.A. Sparks before losing to them again this week. She did, however, manage to make league history, becoming the first rookie to record 30 points, three blocks, and three steals in one game.
Meanwhile, fans and sports commentators are speculating that the rookie hasn’t exactly gotten a warm welcome from her new colleagues. Some say older WNBA players are jealous of how much credit she’s being given for the league’s newfound attention. Others think this is typical treatment for a rookie with a big reputation, and Clark has been compared to a number of NBA players, including Michael Jordan and LeBron James, whose hyped-up entries into the league were swiftly checked by their fellow players. The official line from most has been that the WNBA is happy to have Clark onboard and a rising tide lifts all boats. So are any of these rumors true? Here’s what we know.
A handful of WNBA greats seems to have a chilly attitude toward Clark.
Even before she went pro, a few more senior WNBA players — including some who are no longer in the league — made public comments that were interpreted as being antagonistic toward Clark. In early April, after Clark broke two NCAA scoring records, New York Liberty power forward Breanna Stewart told a reporter she didn’t think the then–Iowa star could be considered one of women’s college basketball’s greats because she hadn’t won her team a championship. Around the same time, college-basketball legend Lynette Woodard suggested during a coaches’ convention that Clark hadn’t broken her scoring record because they weren’t playing under the same rules. Another former player, Sheryl Swoopes, attempted to undercut one of Clark’s accomplishments, incorrectly claiming that her scoring record wasn’t valid because she had been playing for more than four years.
Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi made a comment seen as shade when she was asked about the up-and-coming crop of college superstars (which included both Clark and Angel Reese) during an ESPN interview ahead of the 2024 draft. “Reality is coming,” Taurasi said of her future colleagues’ entry into the big leagues. “You look superhuman playing against 18-year-olds, but you’re going to come play with some grown women that have been playing professional basketball for a long time.” She referred to a “transition period” in which, she said, “you’re just going to have to give yourself grace as a rookie.” Later, responding to the controversy her statement stirred up, Taurasi called fans “really sensitive.”
And then there’s A’ja Wilson, the Las Vegas Aces star who was accused of being jealous of Clark after tweeting, “Psalm 37:7,” referencing a biblical verse about being patient while others succeed, amid news that Clark was about to sign a record-breaking sneaker deal with Nike. Wilson, who is also signed to Nike — and ended up releasing her own sneaker less than a month later — responded to the rumors with another tweet. “No one is jealous bookie!” she said. “Our league is hard as hell so to thrive and to stay in it consistently is huge!”
Wilson has also acknowledged what a lot of fans have speculated is the source of some animosity toward Clark: that she’s a white woman who has found unprecedented success in a predominantly Black league. Wilson recently told AP News that she felt Clark’s whiteness was a “huge” factor in her popularity. “You can be top-notch at what you are as a Black woman,” she said, but “they don’t see it as marketable, so it doesn’t matter how hard I work.” She added, “It boils my blood when people say it’s not about race because it is.”
