Caitlin Clark's latest injury sparks debate: Is it because of opponents' physicality or refereeing?
Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever cheers on her teammates as they play against the Liberty during the first half at Barclays Center on Wednesday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Night after night, Caitlin Clark faces her opponent’s best defender. Sometimes she faces an opponent’s three best defenders.
As much as a compliment as this is, the level of physicality the Indiana Fever superstar faces on a nightly basis is beginning to take a toll on her body. That is worrisome to Fever coach Stephanie White, especially after watching Clark suffer her second groin injury of the season.
Clark was supposed to be leading the Fever into battle against the Liberty, the WNBA’s reigning champions, Wednesday night in front of a sold-out Barclays Center. Instead, she was sitting on the bench in a black sweatshirt and pants during the Liberty's 98-77 victory after suffering a right groin injury in the Fever’s win over the Connecticut Sun on Tuesday at TD Garden in Boston.
The timing couldn’t have been worse for the WNBA as the Fever are the host team for Saturday’s All-Star Game, which was certainly shaping up to be a giant Caitlin Lovefest. In addition to being the captain of one of the All-Star teams, Clark was set to compete in the Three-Point Contest against a cast of players including the Liberty’s Sabrina Ionescu.
Clark has yet to be ruled out for the festivities, but it’s not looking likely. The injury was Clark’s fourth in the last five months. The 23-year-old has dealt with quad tightness in the preseason, a separate quad strain that kept her out five games in May and early June and then a left groin injury that kept her out another five games.
Though all of her injuries have been non-contact, White believes the way Clark is being guarded — not to mention the way games are being called or not called — has directly contributed to the injuries that have caused her to miss 11 games this season.
“The physicality that she is experiencing for 40 minutes, it causes you to load differently, it causes you to explode differently,” White said before her team’s game against the Liberty. “It causes you to accelerate and decelerate differently. It’s not the free-flowing movement that we want to see when it comes to freedom of movement.
“And I think all of those things at times while it might not be one blow or another, over time can contribute to that. That’s why freedom of movement is a huger emphasis from our coaching standpoint when we have conversations at the league level. So, can you point it out to one thing or the other, but I do think the physicality of which teams are able to play with her are a factor.”
Caitlin’s brother Colin was even more succinct on social media. “Make no mistake, this is on the reffing,” Colin’s wrote Tuesday in a since deleted post on X.
Whining about officiating is a time-honored practice in sports, yet there could be something to this considering just how much pressure Clark has to deal with on a nightly basis. It’s not so much that players target Clark as some of her hardcore fans assert. Rather, it’s that even the best defenders get up to play her because she is such a challenge. And this could be something that officials haven’t quite adjusted to.
“I think what is absolutely true is she’s been defended unlike any player we’ve ever seen in the history of this league,” ESPN play-by-play announcer Ryan Ruocco said on a conference call Tuesday, hours before Clark was injured. “If people try to act like she’s being defended like any other great rookie is, that’s not true. People weren’t covering every other rookie guard at 94 feet.
“I don’t think that’s motivated by targeting. I think what’s happened is any time people see zealous defense against Caitlin, they try to retrofit the narrative of how she is being targeted. I think the vast majority of the time — I’m not going to say there aren’t any exceptions — I think it’s people trying to defend the most unique offensive weapon this league has ever seen.”
This kind of defense is far different than what Clark saw as a phenom at Iowa. And, it appears to be even tougher than what she encountered during her standout rookie season. Teams now know a lot more about Clark than they did last year and are looking to stop her at every turn.
It’s something she and her team will have to learn to deal with. Officials don’t seem ready to give her the star treatment yet, and opponents aren’t about to ease up.
Clark is a truly great player, the kind that comes around once in a generation. The timing of this injury is terrible, but the bet here is that like all great players she will figure it out.
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
