Can the Caitlin Clark-Angel Reese rivalry be negative for the WNBA? When Sheryl Swoopes had ignored Clark’s contribution to the Indiana Fever, Elle Duncan chose to side with the number-one pick. “This just doesn’t feel right at all, and it is starting to feel a little bit like hate from Sheryl,” Duncan stated while checking Swoopes for her statements. Next, during the Rookie of the Year debate, the analyst made her allegiance clear to Clark, who, according to her, deserved it more than the Sky rookie. However, when the point guard has now taken the Fever to the playoffs, Duncan has come to the fore to expose the negative side of the Clark-Reese rivalry, which according to her, should not be overlooked else it might be “nasty.”

Duncan was present in a chat at ‘Good Game with Sarah Spain’ when she reflected on the other side of the WNBA that hasn’t been much covered by analysts and how the Reese-Clark rivalry has shifted the entire attention to itself. Coming from Duncan’s mouth was unusual since she has been a Clark fan from the beginning of this season, and continues to be one.

“To be a little critical of the league itself that while we wanted to lean into the sort of the rivalry part of Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark, it’s important, it’s integral to any sport to sort of have animosity and to build rivalries. I am not sure that really anyone was in a position to do a great job of sort of explaining why so much of the vitriol that we have seen in social media in particular exists,” Duncan stated.

Since Clark’s emergence in the league, her ROTY and performances have been central to any W debate. So much so that the WNBA legend Sheryl Swoopes revealed being threatened by Nancy Lieberman and Stephen A. Smith. Even Clark’s opponents on the court like Diamond DeShields and Chennedy Carter had to face a lot of flak from fans when they had nudged Clark. All this has certainly pointed out a craze for Clark, but at times this has crossed the line.

Though Duncan agreed that there was a group of analysts like LaChina Robinson, Monica McNutt, Chiney Ogwumike, etc. who were trying their best to give other issues their deserved space, the entire system was responsible for promoting Clark-Reese rivalry at the behest of other important topics.

“I don’t still think that we were, and I say ‘we’ just I mean the landscape in general, wasn’t prepared to have these tough conversations and now the league has done sort of ‘Oh, we love the rivalry part’ but without addressing the other part of it. This is nasty and not good and not okay. I think finding the balance of sort of the hot take economy which is important in growing the sport. You know in the morning like you know you on first take like the idea that they spend about 45 minutes talking about the WNBA. That kind of stuff is important but I think finding the right balance of hot take economy with the actual knowledge of why this thing exists in first place is something that we probably failed at this year and I hope everyone can collectively can do a better job of next year,” Duncan concluded.

When the Indiana Fever and the Chicago Sky clashed for the third time this season in June, it garnered 2.3 million viewers on ESPN, making it the most-watched WNBA game. Then when the Fever and Sky met once again during the fourth and last regular season game, it became the most-watched game of the season on ION. The ‘Clark fever’ took over the WNBA as she eclipsed Alyssa Thomas’s single-season assists record. On the same day, Skylar Diggins-Smith broke into the top-10 all-time assists leaders list but was ignored.

“I completely agree Monica and I want to ask you that one thing at the beginning of the season that I was saying is you need to have a take to make it to a lot of these shows. So if you don’t watch the game enough, you can’t have a take. So a real simple take is Caitlin vs Angel or are they being mean to her or she needs to play well for the league? These were things that people who didn’t want to put the work in could talk about,” Spain agreed.

There was even a growing pain due to the alleged nature of the Clark-Reese rivalry. Even Dave Portnoy, when he had criticized Reese after the 2023 NCAA Championship Finale, got a lot of backlash as it was interpreted in another way. The league’s, what some would call, impartiality is evident from the fact that while the 2x WNBA Champions Las Vegas Aces had 35 of their 40 games streamed nationally, the Fever got 36 national slots. And even the Minnesota Lynx head coach, Cheryl Reeve, had expressed her disagreement with the same.

Cheryl Reeve subtly reminds fans of other WNBA teams

Reeve, during the beginning of the season, had expressed her fury at the league. Then, the W had publicized the Indiana Fever’s preseason game against the Dallas Wings. That game was available to stream WNBA’s League Pass app for free. However, the Minnesota Lynx matchup with the Chicago Sky required the fans to be present at the Target Center to watch it with no broadcasting whatsoever.

“Though fans won’t be able to watch, #Lynx fans can go to the Lynx app to follow along via play by play. Or if you are in market, come to the game…as we start the season off right,” Reeve had stated while retweeting the league’s promotion of Clark’s game. And this again pointed to the fact that Clark was being sold every time while the other players and teams were suffering.

Now that we head into the playoffs and Reese is injured, it remains to be seen if Clark will trend that much on the internet. And perhaps the league will need to bring other players into light.