Indiana Fever star rookie Caitlin Clark said she isn’t looking for an apology from Chicago Sky guard Chennedy Carter, who hip-checked Clark in the teams’ game Saturday. The foul on Carter was later upgraded to a Flagrant 1 and the play ignited a week of nationwide attention.
“No, I mean basketball is competitive, I get it,” Clark said when asked if she thinks Carter owes her a public apology. “Sometimes your emotions get the best of you. It’s happened to me multiple times throughout the course of my career. People are competitive and it is what it is.”
Rather than rehash last Saturday’s incident, Clark shifted the conversation to praise Carter’s season. The Sky’s fourth-year guard is averaging 13.9 points off the bench while shooting a career-high 53 percent from the field.
“She’s having a tremendous season, she’s played great basketball in my eyes and is probably in first place for Sixth Player of the Year, she’s been great off the bench for them,” Clark said.
Chicago players and coaches have answered questions regarding Carter’s foul all week, as Sky coach Teresa Weatherspoon told reporters Monday the play was “not appropriate,” and on Wednesday, multiple players shared reports of being harassed as they got off their team bus in Washington D.C.
Clark said she doesn’t dwell on the play and is more focused on her team’s play. The Fever are 2-9 entering Friday’s game against the Washington Mystics and Clark is coming off her worst game yet as a pro, as she scored 3 points on 10 shot attempts in a 104-68 loss to the New York Liberty.
“That’s just not where my focus is, that’s not what I think about on a day-to-day basis,” Clark said about the foul. “I think about my team, I think about ways that I can get better. It’s just basketball at the end of the day, there’s no grudges, there’s nothing like that. It’s a sport, it’s competitive, it’s not going to be nice all the time, that’s not what basketball is, and I think people that play at the highest level understand that.”
Ahead of Friday’s game, Clark acknowledged her struggles and said she hasn’t shot the ball as well as she’d liked but acknowledged the team’s growth and praised the team’s growing chemistry.
She said getting used to the losing has been an adjustment and noted how the Fever are the most inexperienced team in the league.
“It can just be tough at times when you don’t always have the experience,” she said. “But I think one of the biggest positives over the course of these first 11 games is the energy about this group. It’s the same exact (energy) as when we played our first game, there’s a positive attitude every day that we show up and we truly believe every single game we’re going into we’re going to win.”
In Clark’s four years with Iowa, the most games the Hawkeyes lost in a season was 10, a figure she’s already nearing in her rookie season.
“Overall, I think I’ve played good basketball,” she said.