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Bummers: A grim turn in Clark’s third seasonCaitlin Clark has been tracking toward the best statistical season of her three-year WNBA career. But now she’s both injured and in the middle of yet another league controversy.
The actual basketball has been good. Clark is averaging a career-high 21 points while assisting on 46.5 percent of her teammates’ made shots when she’s on the floor. The latter is the highest mark in the WNBA. She has appeared in all but one of the Fever’s first 18 games. The team has been fine, sitting third in the East with a 10-8 record heading into a nationally televised game tonight against the Los Angeles Sparks (8 p.m. ET on CBS).
Clark won’t be playing tonight, however, as she deals with a back injury. It’s the latest in a handful of injury struggles Clark has had as a professional, and this one comes against the backdrop of an intense debate over how fouls against (and committed by) Clark are officiated.
Since Clark entered the league, opponents have defended her with zeal, as one would expect. Sometimes their fouls have been flagrant, and they haven’t always been called that way on the court. Has Clark been targeted while the league’s officials have declared open season on her, or is the league merely treating her like any other player? This week, it felt like the former, as Clark faced two uncalled “cheap shots” (her coach’s words) by members of the Phoenix Mercury. It’s not clear if those plays led to the injury that now has Clark on the shelf.Some of the roughing-up of Clark has been over the top, unnecessary and uncalled. There was no reason why Alyssa Thomas needed to press her fist on Clark’s neck during a loose-ball scramble Wednesday. The league agreed after the fact, when it ruled the play was a Flagrant 2 and gave Thomas the associated one-game suspension. You can see why the Fever are so angry, given Clark’s injury history.Meanwhile, the WNBA remains stuck in a multifront argument over how Clark should be recognized. This week brought an internet furor over Clark (maybe the league’s most famous player ever) and Diana Taurasi (one of its most accomplished) not appearing on a commemorative poster celebrating the WNBA’s 30th year. (It may well have been a licensing limitation.) Whether the league appreciates Clark, or how much it should appreciate her, is a constant, exhausting debate.At the same time, Clark is running up technical fouls of her own. Officials have called five on her this season. Clark called the last one “ridiculous” as she came within three techs of a mandated suspension. As Brian Hamilton wrote this week, Clark and the league are in a push-and-pull over how much a star of her magnitude should influence the shape of the league — and, implicitly, how much leeway she should get from the refs.
