Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark took a hit to the throat from Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas during Wednesday’s game, and the play has kept the debate rolling ever since.
The sequence came in the second quarter, when both players were scrambling for a loose ball. Thomas appeared to punch Clark in the throat while Clark was on the floor, and no foul was called at the time. Clark later left the game in the third quarter because of a back injury, and Phoenix finished off a 111-109 win.
A day later, the WNBA stepped in. After a review on Thursday, Thomas was hit with a one-game suspension and a $1,000 fine for a Flagrant 2 foul on Clark. That decision still didn’t settle the conversation, though, because plenty of people moved quickly to defend Thomas.
Former NFL guard Geoff Schwartz wasn’t having that.
“Has anyone outside of Lisa Leslie in the WNBA TV media sphere defended Clark. Or at least discussed how that wasn’t a basketball play?
Put any blame on Thomas at all? Just seems like everyone is finding ways to make that play seem normal or making Thomas a victim.
Seems odd. Like we all see the video.
We’ve all watched ball,” Schwartz tweeted on Sunday.
Schwartz, who was drafted by the Carolina Panthers in the seventh round in 2008, spent four years with the team. He also played the 2012 season with the Minnesota Vikings and the 2013 season with the Kansas City Chiefs, then later spent two seasons with the New York Giants before retiring in February 2017.
Clark’s Fever, now 11-8, are set to play the Las Vegas Aces on Monday at 7 p.m. ET from T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada. Before that meeting, the Aces will go through games against the New York Liberty and the Chicago Sky.
Indiana heads into that matchup coming off a 111-87 win over the LA Sparks on Saturday.
In Other News...
Pacers Just Got Linked To A Budget Backcourt Option Fans Will Debate
The Pacers have spent the early part of the offseason looking for ways to deepen the bench, with wing help and front-court support sitting near the top of the wish list. General manager Chad Buchanan already pointed to the wing and center spots as the most obvious areas to address, which makes the teams search for another perimeter option feel very much in line with the job description.
From there, Dustin Dopirak connected Indiana to Gary Trent Jr. as a free-agent name worth watching, and the fit is easy enough to understand on paper. Trents recent production gives him some appeal, but the real question for the Pacers is whether a backcourt addition like that can be squeezed into the kind of salary lane theyre working with as they try to improve the roster without getting too far out over their skis. [Read more 🡒]
Pacers Draft Move Just Raised A Familiar Free Agency Concern
The Pacers used draft night to add another young guard, but the more revealing part of the move may have come afterward, when the front office shifted almost immediately to the rest of the roster. Chad Buchanan said Indianas attention now turns to free agency, with an eye on adding help at backup wing and center, the sort of depth chart issues that tend to shape how a team gets through the long regular season.
Micah Potter is part of that conversation, along with the broader plan for center depth after the teams recent roster moves. Indiana has made a habit of keeping the front end of the roster flexible and sorting out the edges later, and this offseason looks set to test that same approach again as the Pacers try to balance immediate coverage with longer-term fit. [Read more 🡒]
Pacers Fans Should Appreciate What Tyrese Haliburton Gives Indiana
In a league that keeps reminding teams how hard it is to find a true lead guard, Indiana has one of the best in Tyrese Haliburton. That matters more than ever when you look around at how other contenders are built, from the Knicks to the Thunder to the Spurs, all of them valuing elite point guard play as the engine for everything else. Haliburton has already shown he can be the kind of organizer and creator a franchise can build around, and Pacers fans have every reason to appreciate how rare that is.
There is, though, a different layer to the conversation right now. Haliburton is working his way back from an Achilles injury, which naturally changes both the immediate picture and the long-term discussion in Indiana. The Pacers still know what they have when he is right, but the question hanging over the franchise is how much of that edge remains as he returns and how quickly it can translate back into winning at the level Indiana has come to expect. [Read more 🡒]