Caitlin Clark Criticism Rises Amid Heated Sideline Moment With Coach

Indiana Fever v Golden State Valkyries — Source: Ezra Shaw / Getty

It’s been a stressful weekend for Caitlin Clark.

Her performance has been perceived as lackluster this season, despite averaging 20 points, and on Friday night, it even prevented her from properly reveling in becoming the fastest WNBA player to reach 1,000 points and 500 assists.

It came in her Indiana Fever’s 90-88 loss to the Golden State Valkyries, and despite scoring 16 points, she was 3 for 12 on shooting. So she skipped talking to the mandatory media session after the game.

Then, more fractures showed on Saturday when the Fever lost 100-84 to the Portland Fire. Her performance wasn’t highlight-worthy that day either, only dropping six points while going 1-of-7.

It was exacerbated early on, about halfway through the first quarter, when head coach Stephanie White inexplicably subbed out Clark, Lexie Hull, and Aliyah Boston despite them having the momentum and leading at the time.

Once they were taken out, the Fire took advantage, and the quarter ended with them leading 29-15.

Later in the game, White and Clark had a heated conversation during a timeout. In the huddle, White can be seen sternly pointing into Clark’s face and yelling. Clark responds by animatedly throwing her hands in the air as white threw the clipboard to the floor. Clark then leaves the huddle as she shakes her head.

While we didn’t get an explanation for the huddle blowup, White simply described the first-quarter substitutions as load management.

“Well, AB is still in a minutes restriction, so that’s why she’s coming out, and that’s typically around the same time that we’ve taken Caitlin out before. We didn’t in Golden State because, quite honestly, we didn’t want Raven in that environment without another ball handler on the floor, but that’s been our typical substitution pattern.”

Clark’s Fever is 4-4 on the season, and social media has been heavily critical of her stats thus far as she comes off the high of her first couple of seasons in the WNBA.

See the reactions below.