Caitlin Clark's real WNBA threat? Bad officiating on reckless closeouts

· Yahoo Sports

So much has been made about the Alyssa Thomas-Caitlin Clark incident from Wednesday night's Indiana Fever loss to the Phoenix Mercury, but the focus is going in the wrong direction as far as the future goes.

Visit sport-tr.bet for more information.

Of course, the video of Thomas pressing her closed fist against Clark's neck will dominate the headlines. It's a wildly inappropriate move on Thomas' part that rightly got her suspended for a game with a Flagrant 2 foul. There was no world where the WNBA couldn't respond, and there's just no world right now where awful takes wouldn't follow.

The notion that this is Clark's life regularly in the WNBA is objectively wrong. Basketball is a physical sport, but Clark does not take this kind of horrid contact night after night. Honestly, moments this egregious are pretty rare as far as Clark's time in the WNBA has gone. You can look at the Chennedy Carter hip-check from 2024 or the Marina Mabrey shove from 2025 to find moments where Clark got unnecessary aggression from a player off the ball. Mabrey even admitted that her act was wrong later; Clark hasn't suffered this kind of aggressive action on a regular basis; she's just not subjected to regular hostility from opposing players on the basketball court. Clark plays scrappily; it's part of her technical brilliance and fuels her fire. Players give it back. That's just part of the game.

However, there is a troubling trend emerging in 2026 that really could put Clark in actual danger if the WNBA doesn't tighten it up and if the officials don't learn how to snuff it out. The league has to make sure it's giving out Flagrant 1 calls on landing space violations when players like Clark take on reckless contact on 3-point attempts.

Landing space violations are some of the most dangerous fouls in basketball. If a defender makes foot-to-foot contact with a shooter beyond the arc -- causing them to fall because they aren't given enough space in the landing zone to come down safely from the shot attempt -- that can cause legitimate injury to the shooter. Clark has been hit on 3-point attempts during three pretty notable sequences in 2026, and only one was upgraded to a Flagrant 1 during the preseason. The others were either reviews and deemed only a common foul or only reviewed to see if Clark committed a hostile act (she did not). These are the moments where the Fever should raise hell with the league office to get fixed as soon as possible. Clark has gotten hurt on two of these three reckless closeouts.

The first reckless closeout came against the Dallas Wings in the preseason

Clark left the game with a knee injury after a reckless closeout from forward Alanna Smith. The refs actually got this one right; the play was clearly a landing space violation worthy of an upgrade on Smith. Clark exited the game with injury after the foul, thankfully for her and the Fever not one that held her out past the conclusion of the preseason contest. At least in this instance, the refs did their job to call the reckless closeout like they should. Clark got hurt, but it wasn't without a quick response from the refs. Somehow, this was the best example... in a meaningless game.

Against the Washington Mystics earlier this month, there was regression

The refs did not upgrade what looked to be a clear landing space violation on Clark from guard Cassandre Prosper. Clark banked a 3-pointer but went crashing to the court after Prosper didn't give her enough space to land as she ran over to defend the attempt. Clark wasn't injured on the play, but it almost assuredly should have resulted in an upgrade for Prosper. We're still unsure how the refs didn't think to elevate this one with how seemingly clear it was.

Then, Wednesday night's Mercury game where the Thomas incident happened

Yes, that got all the attention, but it's the reckless closeout from forward Valériane Ayayi that was only deemed a common foul. The refs took it to the replay table to check it over, but only to see if Clark committed a hostile act during the collision. Fever coach Stephanie White railed against the lack of an upgrade from the refs, not even realizing in her postgame comments that the replay was actually involving Clark's arm, not to see if Ayayi committed a flagrant on the reckless closeout. You can see Clark grabbing her back after falling to the court, only to later leave the game with a back injury.

Clark is not at risk every night she takes the WNBA court of a Thomas-like neck-press. As much as the hysteria in the air of Clark not being safe from angry opponents may fester in the air, there is real risk for Clark and the Fever -- and quite frankly, any WNBA 3-point shooter -- if the league doesn't figure out how to consistently call reckless closeouts as flagrant fouls. These Clark examples show stark regression from the officials on how they're called.

Yes, Clark is a tough player to officiate. She's arguably the best 3-point shooter of her generation; she's just a headache defend once she gets going from the perimeter. However, just because she's an elite 3-point shooter doesn't mean players get the right to recklessly impede her landing zone out of sheer desperation. Just like the NFL constantly whistled any defender who dared to improperly sack one of its superstar quarterbacks, the WNBA has to make sure it's calling landing zone fouls fairly for its players, even if they're nearly impossible to guard. Being great at your job shouldn't give opponents a golden ticket for flagrant fouls that only get deemed as common. The more players have to actually be careful when they defend shooters like Clark on these attempts, the less bad contact will happen and the less concerned offensive players will have to be of getting injured when it's just so, so avoidable.

If you want to see where the refs are really failing Clark this season, here it is.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: Caitlin Clark's real WNBA threat? Bad officiating on reckless closeouts

Read full story at source