Sheryl Swoopes Tells Angel Reese She Doesn't Hate Caitlin Clark
One of the most frequent storylines of this WNBA season is the narrative of women's basketball legend Sheryl Swoopes refusing to credit Indiana Fever superstar Caitlin Clark for her accomplishments.
This all started when Swoopes incorrectly stated on the“Gil’s Arena” YouTube show back in January that Clark was in her fifth season at the University of Iowa in 2023-24, implying that this would have diminished her overall NCAA scoring record. But it was Clark's fourth season.
Since then, there have been various other perceived slights that Swoopes has been called out for; all of which have turned the whole affair into a strange, sad saga that appears to have no end.
Yet, during a Thursday appearance on Chicago Sky superstar Angel Reese's "Unapologetically Angel" podcast, Swoopes asserted that she holds no ill will toward Clark.
"So when you say Sheryl Swoopes and Caitlin Clark, it's like 'Oh my goodness, Sheryl doesn't like her, so let's see what this is about,'" Swoopes said to Reese.
"All of that is stupid to me. It's not true. It's all stupid. Like, when I look at the number 22s in the league... I was 22, A'ja [Wilson] is 22, Caitlin is 22, those are some hell of a good number 22s. And we're all a part of the Nike family. A lot of the stuff people are trying to say is there, it just does not exist.
"Like, I'm tired of it," Swoopes continued, before Reese added, "It's tiring."
"And I can't only imagine that [Caitlin] has to be tired of it as well. There was nothing there," Swoopes said.
She then made one admission by saying, "The only time I made a mistake talking about Caitlin and what she's done is on the podcast back in February, that I apologized for. But it's like, 'Nope. You hate her.'"
Sheryl Swoopes says she’s tired of people claiming she hates Caitlin Clark
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) September 26, 2024
(🎥 @angelreeseshow / https://t.co/kzKNrfjNab) pic.twitter.com/6AUh5Co12f
We'll allow fans to draw their own conclusions about Swoopes' sentiment.
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.