Yahoo Sports’ Caroline Fenton and Jason Fitz react to the Indiana Fever guard’s announcement that she will miss the remainder of the WNBA season with a groin injury – and why the team probably should not have let her play in mid-July when the injury was reaggravated.
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Video Transcript
There has been a lot of back and forth, there have been a lot of.
I’m wondering from some WNBA fans and WNBA media about when Caitlyn Clark could potentially make her return.
There’s been, you know, some wondering, has Caitlyn Clark, you know, has there ever really been optimism within the building that she could come back with the fever or making kind of a strategic decision, you know, a tactical advantage kind of decision to keep all of that close to the chest.
They very intentionally wanted to make all of Caitlyn Clark’s injury updates vague.
They didn’t want to have to release any information that they didn’t have to release.
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So I do have to wonder why now, why make this statement now after nearly two months of Caitlyn Clark being on the bench, but the news of the evening in the WNBA, no Caitlyn Clark for the rest of the season.
That’s compounded with no Sophie Cunningham for the rest of the season, no Ari McDonald for the rest of the season, no Sydney Colson for the rest of the season.
And this is a Fever team that we saw through all of their moves.
This past offseason, they were making a push for a championship, but that championship and all of those dreams and all of that optimism, all of those hopes were completely riddled with injury.
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And so now the Fever might be finding themselves in a place where they might even miss the playoffs if the Sparks keep up their winning ways.
Now, if I’m a Fever fan, I want them to miss the playoffs at this point.
There’s no point in going in, like, get the better draft pick.
And what do we say in every single sport?
Go get the better draft pick, right?
And I know that that doesn’t feel great right now, but if we’re being honest, everything’s gonna be about the future of Caitlyn.
And, and I think, you know, to, to jump in here and make a point on this, Caroline, I, I feel like we need as a collective sports society to learn a little from this because when Caitlyn came back and she played for that week in early July, and there were questions about, you know, she played in the game against Connecticut and, and she re-injured herself.
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All of a sudden it was like, well, you know, right before the All-Star game, what are they doing?
And, you know, they’re about to play the New York Liberty and they need the TV ratings.
Like, we put all of these other things around Caitlyn, It just surprises me sometimes.
At the end of the day, they should be treating Caitlyn Clark like we treat any superstar in any sport.
Like we have to presume that when she’s healthy, she’s gonna be out there.
But if she’s not, don’t rush her back.
Don’t try and create some situations just because you’re thirsty for the attention today, you don’t put her at risk.
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And I think that’s part of what we as a society watching the W need to understand.
Sometimes the conversation gets so much about what she brings to the WNBA without the conversation being about just the player and the player here, I’m not sure she should have ever come back on the court, right?
Like she looked like a shell of herself for the week that she was back, and then she gets re-injured, and all of a sudden we see this all the time.
I just want to see basketball players in general, W and NBA.
I want to see basketball players figure out a better way to make sure they’re closer to 100% before they get on the court.
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And I know that feels impossible, but the string of re-injuries we’ve seen across both of these sports is to me staggering and something that we need to start adjusting the way we bring players back from.
