Everything you need to know before the WNBA All-Star Game
Mackenzie Salmon from Sports Tilegians breaks down some of the big storylines coming out of the WNBA All-Star Game as they get closer soon.
Seriously sports
Kate Linklark has the opportunity to calm the toxic behavior of the worst fans.
Clark and fellow WNBA All-Star captain Nafeesa Collier will select teams for the 2025 All-Star Game scheduled for July 19th, with Indiana Feverstar sending a message highlighted by drafting Angel Reese. The team will be selected live on ESPN on Tuesday, July 8th at 7pm.
The Chicago Sky Forward was cast as the villain of Clark’s hero, dating back to his college junior year, when Reese waving her ring finger at Clark after LSU defeated Iowa in the NCAA Championship Game. It wasn’t important whether Reese was imitating Clark’s own “You can’t see me” or that. A rivalry has been created.
Sports thrive with rivals. Brady vs. Manning. Yankees vs. Red Sox. Warriors vs. Cavaliers. And with the closest comparison between Clark and Reese, Magic vs. Bird.
But the rivalry between Clark and Reese is ugly, a problem for everyone in the WNBA. There’s far too many fans segments, not the majority of Clark fans, not the majority of fans.
Again, not all her fans. But it’s enough to do real damage. Players who offer Clark a hard foul can expect to see their social media accounts flooded with hateful messages. Reese spoke about being a target of deepfakes in porn. Some of it was sent to her family.
And it’s a disaster to anyone who says a bit of a critical thing about Clark and her game. (Or God votes her for the ninth best guard during a season when she misses half of the Indiana game and isn’t filming well.)
“In my 11-year career, I have never experienced any racial comments (as is) from the Indiana Fever fan base,” Alyssa Thomas said in the playoffs last year after eliminating Fever following a controversial series accused of trying to make Clark a mime Clark.
“To be honest, it’s unacceptable and there’s no place for it,” Thomas continued. “We’ve been professional throughout, but we’ve never been called something called on social media. There’s no place for that. Basketball is heading in a great direction, but we don’t want fans who will degrade us and call us racial.”
Clark directly and indirectly denied this segment of his fanbase. Her most severe accusations came last year on Time’s Athlete of the Year profile.
“Stop it,” she told the magazine. “That’s because it’s not me.”
But the trolls and bias continue, and no one is abused more than Reese.
When the WNBA said it was investigating racist abuse during the first game of Sky and Fever in Indianapolis this season, she was lightly paraded and ocked when the league said it couldn’t demonstrate any comment. Fans coined the term “Memons” to reduce her game. Reese is the WNBA’s major rebounder (12.8 per game) simply because she’s grabbing her mistake.
But if Clark chooses a lease for her All-Star team, it can silence some of the horrifying howling chorus. People who say Reese sucks and kills her social accounts on vitriol may pipe down if they see her having Clark’s support. When Clark himself gives the public seal of approval, those who think they support Clark for their troubles may think twice.
Some people are terrible because they are just terrible. (If your criticism of a player becomes personal or if racist or homophobic is thinly disguised, you are a bad person. Sorry, sorry.) But Clark and Reese are on the same All-Star team.
The All-Star Game is stupid by its very nature. Even though they are at risk, players tend to treat it as a glorious exhibition. All of these are fine! But if this All-Star game was the catalyst for dedating the WNBA’s worst fans and creating a league, wouldn’t it be a good thing?
No matter who Clark chooses, she will have a good team for the All-Star Game. Drafting the lease allowed her to have a good team for the entire game and everyone in it.
Follow USA Today sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrammour.
