Caitlin Clark is now in her third WNBA season after being the number one pick in the 2024 draft. In that time, the league’s ratings have skyrocketed, game-day attendance is way up, and a new collective bargaining agreement was reached that ballooned player salaries.
But it hasn’t all been all smooth sailing for Clark. She has been on the receiving end of countless hard fouls and controversial physical play that many have attributed to her race (she’s white) and sexuality (she’s straight). And Clark then missed most of her sophomore season due to groin and quad injuries.
After making it back for the 2026 season, Clark is now set to miss Saturday’s game between her Indiana Fever and the Los Angeles Sparks due to a purported back injury. That announcement followed a series of notable incidents, including a high-profile snub, a potentially dangerous delayed foul call, and some apparent coaching drama.
On Friday’s show, Megyn was joined by Jason Whitlock, host of Fearless with Jason Whitlock, to discuss the latest controversy surrounding Clark and his theory behind her latest ‘injury.’
Poster Problems
The most recent drama involving Clark flared up Wednesday, when the WNBA released its thirtieth anniversary poster featuring the league’s ‘biggest stars’ – past and present.
Not included? Clark, even though she is undisputedly the biggest star currently playing in the WNBA and already holds several records. Her 337 assists in 2024 set the league’s single-season assists record, while her 769 points and 122 three-pointers are both rookie records.
Some reporting has suggested the apparent snub was due to a licensing issue, but the league itself has not confirmed anything. In the absence of an explanation, everyone has been left to speculate about the baffling omission.
Potential licensing issues aside, Whitlock believes there is another reason for the exclusion. “The WNBA is controlled by this Marxist mindset that, hey, everybody should get something and we got to share things equitably, equally, blah blah blah,” he posited.
“Diana Taurasi is widely considered the greatest WNBA player of all time. She’s white, and she’s not on the poster either… There may have been a licensing issue with Diana Taurasi, or it may have just been this stupidity of, let’s leave Taurasi off, let’s leave Sue Bird [off], let’s leave Caitlin off, and let’s showcase these other people because that’s what’s equitable,” Whitlock theorized. “That’s the lunacy instead of doing what’s best for business… and put Caitlin Clark on there [because] she’s got the biggest fan base and they’ll be more likely to buy the poster.”
The Flagrant Foul
But that did not end up being the biggest controversy of the day because during the Fever’s Wednesday night game against the Phoenix Mercury, Mercury player Alyssa Thomas lodged her fist into Clark’s neck in a play where no foul was called (you can watch the incident in the video above).
The WNBA ultimately upgraded the action to a flagrant-2 foul upon review on Thursday. The flagrant-2 designation is defined as unnecessary and excessive contact committed by a player against an opponent and it carries a penalty of immediate ejection. Since the foul was assessed after the game, Thomas will not play in the Mercury’s next game.
While Whitlock admitted that the photos and slo-mo video going around on social media make the play look like “the worst thing in the world,” he zeroed in on Clark’s reaction. “When you watch it in real time, if you play Caitlin’s reaction and how quickly she got up, and when she goes back down court, and you look at her and look at her facial expressions and body movement, this thing is being exaggerated,” he said.
Even so, Whitlock said Thomas has a reputation for dirty play. “She’s a bona fide thug… There’s all kinds of video throughout her career of her being ridiculously physical with her opponents, whether black or white,” he noted. “All of this is par for the course for Alyssa Thomas and [her fiancée, former Indiana Fever player] DeWanna Bonner, and the type of thought ball that they play with everybody in the WNBA.”
Generally speaking, Whitlock actually believes the treatment of Clark has improved this season. “Does Caitlin Clark get treated unfairly in the WNBA? Yes, she did [in] her first two years… These players had a real problem with her and they were extra physical with her, and the league addressed it this off season, implementing new rules about freedom of movement,” he explained.
“So, the games are ref’ed completely different, and the players, for the most part, are completely different because they got a new collective bargaining agreement that is paying them six- to 10-times more than they were ever making in the WNBA, and so the animus around Caitlin Clark has dissipated this season,” Whitlock continued. “Now [players are] joking with her before the game, even during the game… but most people have the old narrative from ‘24 and ‘25 and they’re applying it to what they just saw here.”
Coaching Conundrum?
And if you thought that was the end of the story, think again. The last piece of this week’s drama involves a purported injury Clark suffered during a separate play in the game against the Mercury that caused her to leave the court early with what was later described as a “back injury.”
But Whitlock believes there is more to the story. “There’s a dynamic between Caitlin Clark and her head coach Stephanie White. They have been at each other’s throats now for two years,” he said.
As he described, White and Clark had similar rises through their collegiate careers. “Stephanie White is one of the greatest high school basketball players in the history of Indiana. Like Caitlin Clark, she went to a home state school, Purdue, and lifted Purdue up the way that Caitlin Clark lifted Iowa up. Stephanie White led Purdue to a national championship, and then was a first-round pick in the WNBA,” he explained.
White did not achieve the same level of success in her pro career and turned to coaching, where Whitlock said she has had mixed success at the college and WNBA level. White took over as head coach of the Fever after Clark’s rookie season, and Whitlock believes the two have been “at odds over style of play.”
That may have come to a head Wednesday night. “If you really watch what happened, five minutes into the third quarter, Caitlin Clark had a bad play, threw the ball, turnover, didn’t hustle back on defense, and gave up an easy layup,” Whitlock explained. “Stephanie White hops out of her chair and angrily calls a timeout. The coaches go and huddle, the players are sitting on the bench.”
Whitlock said he has received video from fans who were at the game showing what was going on during that timeout. “Caitlin Clark is sitting on the bench with the other players that are in the game, and she’s planning to go back into the game. Stephanie White eventually comes into the huddle, points at the backup point guard, Raven Johnson, and replaces Caitlin Clark five minutes into the third quarter,” he noted.
“You don’t do this to your best player; you don’t do this to virtually any starter,” Whitlock said. “We’re only five minutes into the third. Why am I getting pulled out? And Caitlin Clark, you can see by her body language, there’s no her talking to a trainer about my back.”
Contrary to what it looked like on TV, Whitlock said the two trainers who appeared to follow Clark into the locker room when she got up off the bench didn’t actually go with her. “You’ll see the trainers… [One] circles and takes her seat behind the bench. She does not continue to follow Caitlin Clark,” he argued.
“So Caitlin Clark, the best player in the league, the biggest draw in the league, allegedly has a back injury, but she’s getting no attention from the trainers,” he questioned. “She’s just walking back out of the arena and then, for the next 12 minutes of real time… the broadcast crew never addresses where is Caitlin Clark. She’s not on the bench, she’s not on the court… The biggest star, the reason why you’re watching the game, has disappeared, and we’re not telling you that she’s disappeared.”
Whitlock had a theory. “Someone had clearly told the broadcast team, ‘We don’t know why Caitlin Clark has disappeared. We don’t want you to address it.’ So, it wasn’t really until the start of the fourth quarter that they came out with this weak explanation of ‘Caitlin Clark won’t return due to a back injury,’ and then they show an edited video of Caitlin leaving in ‘pain.’ ‘You can see her grimace’ – you can’t see her grimace. They’re just lying.”
Clark is a player that, in Whitlock’s view, “needs some correction” as it relates to her history of “brattiness” and trying to direct the reactions of the crowd and officials, but he does not believe White is the coach to successfully, well, coach her.
“This is just part of a personality quirk that Caitlin Clark has. Doesn’t make her the worst person in the world, it makes her a person that needs some correction and she’s getting it from someone she doesn’t respect, Stephanie White,” Whitlock said. “They’re at each other’s throats, and Caitlin Clark walked out. She’d had enough, walked off, and they eventually concoct [a bad explanation] after 12 minutes of trying to figure out what to say. But no one wants to talk about that dynamic because they just want to talk about how Alyssa Thomas [fouled] Caitlin Clark.”
Missing in Action
Ultimately, Whitlock does not believe the dynamic can last. “Stephanie White’s style of play doesn’t work for Caitlin Clark… and Caitlin Clark won’t buy in,” he said. “They just dislike each other, as if they’re competing with each other… The Indiana Fever have surrounded Caitlin Clark with the wrong people, including the head coach. They haven’t managed a superstar.”
Following Whitlock’s appearance on the show, the Fever announced Clark will miss Saturday’s game. On X, he reacted to White’s take on the situation after she seemingly had a laissez-faire attitude with reporters. Watch:
“Does that sound like a coach who lost her favorite player,” he asked on X. “White and Clark cannot co-exist. Clark quit. This is her trade-demand moment.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Whitlock by tuning in to episode 1,348 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.