Fever Player Refutes Noise About Playing With 'Kid At Heart' Caitlin Clark
Women's basketball icon Sheryl Swoopes raised a lot of eyebrows when she implied there was potential turmoil within the Indiana Fever's locker room during a Tuesday appearance on the "Gil's Arena" podcast.
"There's a lot of other s*** going on, that other [Fever] players are like 'This ain't where I want to be,'" Swoopes said. "So you have players that are very significant on this Indiana Fever team that are like, 'I don't... I don't think this is where I wanna be this year.'"
When Swoopes was asked to elaborate on where she received this information from, she said, "I'm not in the locker room. I don't know, I'm not even on the team. I'm talking about more social media."
for those who wants to see the clip pic.twitter.com/4FXpughNAZ
— max (@maxylouvr) September 17, 2024
She made it up, in other words.
While Fever rookie Caitlin Clark is not mentioned directly by Swoopes in the clip, Swoopes seems to be implying that the Fever's locker room problems are due to the microscope that playing with Clark comes with.
It's unknown whether Swoopes' words made their way back to Indiana's locker room. But Clark's teammate Erica Wheeler sent a clear message on how she feels playing alongside the 22-year-old during a media availability session on Wednesday.
"All we do is have fun," Wheeler responded on whether she has had fun with Indiana this season, per X user @nosyone4. "With Caitlin Clark, who never takes anything serious... I tell people all the time, she's really a kid at heart.
"There's moments when we need to be serious, and we are serious," Wheeler continued. "But the majority of the time, we having fun. Because you've gotta understand, the outside world was really trying to get inside this building and we just didn't let it. And having fun is a great way to keep that up."
Erica Wheeler on the Fever always having fun "All we do is have fun with Caitlin Clark who never takes anything serious. I tell people all the time she's really a kid at heart...the outside world was really trying to get inside this building we just didn't let it." pic.twitter.com/laMbVM6xZ7
— correlation (@nosyone4) September 18, 2024
Recent comments show that the "outside world" is still trying to get into Indiana's locker room. But they haven't been able to yet.
Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.