Sheryl Swoopes Implies Problems Within Fever Locker Room Based On Nothing
Women's basketball legend Sheryl Swoopes has been notoriously tight-lipped when it comes to giving Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark her flowers.
While there are now so many instances of this to recount, the first (and most infamous) one came when she incorrectly stated that Clark had broken Kelsey Plum's NCAA scoring record because she played five NCAA seasons as opposed to the four it actually took.
Swoopes said this during a "Gil's Arena" podcast episode in January. Well, Swoopes returned to "GIl's Arena" on Tuesday — and picked right back up where she left off.
First, when Swoopes was talking about the stats Clark has produced this season, she said, "Those are hell of a numbers. But to me, that's not dominating. "
Later on in the podcast, Swoopes appeared to imply that there's turmoil within the Fever's locker room; despite having no insight or evidence into this being true.
"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 on the podcast, per X user @maxylouvr. "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 what exactly she meant by this, she replied with, "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."
In other words, this is pure speculation on her end.
Swoopes then went on to talk about how the women's basketball community was so critical of forward Aliyah Boston when the Fever started the season off slow, prompting Boston to delete her social media accounts as a result.
She then noted how Boston is being praised now that the Fever are playing well, but, "What happens when Aliyah ain't playing well again?
"As a player, do you want to continue to stay in a situation where you keep yourself vulnerable to all of the hate that you know is going to come to you if you're not playing the way everybody thinks you should be playing?" Swoopes continued.
While Swoopes didn't say this explicitly, she seems to be implying that the criticism Boston received was heightened because she was playing on the Fever, alongside Caitlin Clark, which brings a massive spotlight — and microscope.
And although that may be true, there is no evidence to suggest Boston wants to leave Indiana as a result of playing alongside Clark and being under the microscope, so to speak.
"And I'm just using Aliyah as an example," Swooped added. "But if you're a player like Aliyah Boston, you know the worth you bring to any other franchise... But a player like Kelsey Mitchell, Kelsey Mitchell could be very valuable to any team."
for those who wants to see the clip pic.twitter.com/4FXpughNAZ
— max (@maxylouvr) September 17, 2024
It sounds like Swoopes is trying to incite strife within the Fever's locker room out of thin air.
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.