Backlash From Caitlin Clark’s Potential “Enforcer” Leaves Gilbert Arenas in Dilemma: “What the F**k Did I Say?”

Gil’s Arena was put on notice! WNBA legend, Angel McCoughtry called out Gilbert Arenas for making a big deal about her statement about coming out of retirement on Sunday. The former NBA star was shown a clip of the same on Gil’s Arena that aired on Monday so he could respond to McCoughtry. In typical No Chill Gil fashion, he has no idea what he said and what McCoughtry was referring to. He doesn’t know enough about the Olympic gold medalist’s career either, nor how her name is pronounced. He tried to respond that he didn’t mean it in a bad way, but he too was given the wrong reference.

McCoughtry has been gunning for a return to the WNBA for a while. But it only caught unprecedented attention when she said in an interview she’d be Caitlin Clark’s enforcer. In last week’s episode of Gil’s Arena, a fan asked the crew who would be a good enforcer for Caitlin Clark. Arenas drew from McCoughtry’s social media posts and said someone like that would be perfect. He couldn’t recall her name till his co-host supplied it and he correctly pronounced it before talking about how WNBA veterans currently playing need to show the same attitude of protecting the rookies.

He meant it as genuine praise for McCoughtry. Which is why his immediate response to her video was, “What the f**k did I say? What the f**k did I do?” Nick Young was in the studio and he took from McCoughtry’s scathing jab on “real vet” to sarcastically tell Gil, “You was a real vet, bro. I ain’t gonna let no one disrespect you.”

SwaggyP’s protection is too little too late. Arenas was still confused but tried to say that he was only responding to a fan’s specific question about Caitlin Clark and he didn’t intend to imply she’s throwing her name for clout. Yet he gave McCoughtry due credit. “I agree, you was a good vet. That’s why I said this is a person who can come back and the way she’s played, her style, her leadership, that’s the kind of person Caitlin needs at this time until she can defend herself.” But he, Keyon Martin, and Nick Young reiterated that they were responding to a Caitlin Clark question specifically. However, Arenas’ memory failed him.

Where No Chill Gil messed up

Arenas said, “She probably got the wrong information. So her delivery to me I probably can’t take offense of it.” However, it’s actually him who’s going off on the wrong source. He had also spoken about McCoughtry on the No Chill Gil podcast. While he didn’t recall her name on Gil’s Arena, he mispronounced her name as ‘McCartney’ on No Chill Gil, which made her say, “First of all my name is Angel McCoughtry.” 

Again, he was nothing but praise for Angel. But he ruined it when he said, “Someone is going to get paid for protecting her [Clark] as a teammate.” That resulted in commentary under his show accusing McCoughtry of using the most talked about WNBA rookie to stay relevant and stage a comeback.

That’s why McCoughtry told him to not twist her words and she would protect all her teammates because, “That’s what vets do.” So Gil probably needs a redo when he gets the full context.

Stay tuned for more such updates, and to follow what Shaq’s ex-agent, Leonard Armato, has to say about the Reese-Clark rivalry and more, watch this video.