The WNBA finally drew a line. Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas has been suspended one game and assessed a Flagrant 2 foul for shoving her fist into the throat area of Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark on Wednesday night.
The league deemed the contact a non-basketball act. It was not a play on the ball. It was not an incidental collision. It was Thomas, in the heat of a chippy possession, putting her fist on Clark’s throat.
Thomas will sit Saturday when the Mercury host the Toronto Tempo. She is a 13 year veteran who had never been suspended before this week. That history alone tells you the league saw something serious in the contact.
One game is light. There is no other way to say it. A flagrant fist to the throat of any other player would probably draw the same penalty, but the WNBA has been criticized all season for inconsistent officiating around Clark. This is not going to satisfy people who think Clark is being targeted.
To be fair, this is not the first time Thomas and Clark have gone at it. The two have a history that dates back to last summer. Thomas plays an aggressive, physical brand of basketball that has worked for over a decade. Clark plays through contact and creates fouls. The two styles do not mix well.
The bigger picture is the league’s officiating problem. Clark has taken more contact than any other star in the WNBA. Some of it has been called. A lot of it has not. The fans are loud about it. The Fever have been loud about it. The league has tried to walk a tightrope between protecting its biggest draw and not appearing to play favorites.
The Mercury are in second place in the Western Conference. Losing Thomas for one game against the Tempo is not catastrophic, but it does highlight how risky her style of play can be. If this becomes a pattern, the league will have to lengthen suspensions.
Clark is uninjured, which is the most important detail. She missed time earlier this season with a hamstring strain and the Fever did not look like a contender without her. Indiana cannot afford to lose her again, especially to a hit that had nothing to do with playing basketball.
One game does not fix what is happening to Clark on the court. The league needs to find a way to make sure stars like her get the same protection that star scorers in the NBA get. Until then, expect more incidents like Wednesday’s, and more suspensions that feel too short.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
