The latest silly conspiracy on the internet about Indiana Fever superstar guard Caitlin Clark involves why she missed Wednesday night’s game against the Portland Fire.
After Clark was suddenly ruled out of the home tilt with a back injury, speculation ran rampant as to what exactly was going on. Was she really hurt? Is the team just managing Clark’s game load (our guess)? Was it more?
Well, one pernicious conspiracy (which we won’t share here because it’s so silly, but if you’re curious, go look on social media) speculated that Clark had been secretly suspended for a game after she seemingly had an argument with assistant coach Briann January during Sunday’s Seattle Storm win.
That’s absolutely ridiculous. The Fever aren’t going to suspend Clark because of an animated conversation with an assistant coach. Players and coaches get into it all the time in the heat of battle; that’s just how sports work. If the team had suspended Clark for a game, fans would have known about it well ahead of time. Teams don’t just hide it.
Sure, Fever coach Stephanie White’s confusing conjecture around Clark’s injury (she’s not seriously hurt, but we don’t know, but it’s definitely not load management) isn’t helping matters, nor is the decision to sit her last-minute after she didn’t show up on the injury report on Wednesday. Indiana can handle its communication on Clark better.
It’s very possible the team just got cold feet at the sign of Clark even having a slightly sore back and wanted to sit her against a team it was expected to beat. A commanding 90-73 win confirmed those priors; the Fever aren’t going to chance Clark getting hurt again if they can avoid it after 2025, when she probably hit the court too soon.
Fans have been imaging drama between Clark and the Fever for ages now where most likely none exists. She clearly wasn’t suspended from Wednesday night’s game. That’s just a bunch of hooey. She’s probably just subject a hyper-careful load management plan by a team that’s beyond afraid of losing its franchise face again to any sort of injury.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Was Caitlin Clark suspended for latest Fever game? Conspiracies abound