Was this a response to Clark earning the league’s top first-year award?
Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark earned the WNBA’s Rookie of the Year honor on Sunday hours before her team fell to the Connecticut Sun in the first game of their playoff series. Clark, who starred at Iowa as college basketball’s all-time leading scorer, set the WNBA’s new single-season assist record, single-game assist record, rookie scoring record and the rookie 3-point record in leading the Fever to the playoffs.
Angel Reese, one of Clark’s rookie rivals who received a fourth-place vote in the MVP race, but did not trump Indiana’s best player for top rookie billing. In the moments following the WNBA’s award announcements, Reese wrote a message on her personal social media profile, but didn’t directly mention it was about Clark or the vote.
“Woke up again a very blessed girl, a very happy girl,” Reese wrote Sunday afternoon.
Clark previously silenced the “rivalry” discourse between herself and the Chicago Sky star saying she’s had enough of the supposed animosity narrative.
“I’m pretty sure the only people that view this as a rivalry is all of you,” Clark succinctly told reporters. “Like, to us it’s just a game of basketball.”
Reese countered by saying the rivalry is merely a media creation and she believes the ferocity shown between the two players is simply due to competition.
“For me, I don’t think people realize it’s not personal,” Reese said. “I think people just take it like we hate each other. Me and Caitlin Clark don’t hate each other. I want everybody to understand that. It’s just a super competitive game. I just wish people would realize that. Once I get between those lines, there’s no friends. … We’re not buddies. I’m going to talk trash to you. I’m going to do whatever it takes to get in your head the whole entire game, but after the game we can kick it. I don’t think people really realize that.”
Clark previously said she regrets how her on-court battles with Reese became a distraction during consecutive deep runs to the national championship game, and how it took away from stellar seasons at Iowa the past couple of years prior to both players becoming first-round WNBA Draft picks.
The 2022-23 women’s basketball season ended with a heated confrontation between Reese and Clark near the end of the national championship game, the first of consecutive losses by Iowa in the final game. Both players said there was no ill-will prior to this season’s long-awaited rematch showdown in the Elite Eight that drew record viewership, but it remained a major storyline.
