Before making her return on Friday night against the Golden State Valkyries from Ginbridge Fieldhouse, Caitlin Clark spoke to the media and cleared any suspicion of foul play by the Indiana Fever in its decision to rule her out on May 20.
“Tuesday, I was here, got treatment. As I’ve done many practices before, as I’ve made my teammates have done, had every intention of playing, didn’t indicate I wasn’t going to play, approached Wednesday, that was the day of our game, as I was 100% playing, woke up Tuesday, a little sore, texting our training staff, texting my personal physio… Then I had PT at home, then I came down here about like 1 p.m., and we tried to do everything we could, got on the court, I lifted, and went through a hard workout.”
“I actually went back and looked because of all these narratives that are going crazy online about when I told my mom I was going to play the game: 4:47 p.m. You guys found out at 5:20 p.m. So, one of the most important people in my life found out 40 minutes before you guys. So, that’s what my last two days leading up to that Wednesday game looked like,” Clark said.
When asked what went into and who made the final decision not to play in Wednesday night’s game, she said it came down to her own self-confidence in her current body, praised her trust in the team’s medical staff, and expressed her strong desire to compete at full health at this point in the season rather than force herself to perform when not at 100% strenght.
“I think at the end of the day, it’s me and my confidence. And obviously, I have a great team around me. It’s not only me. I trust our medical staff a lot. I have my own personal people that have really helped me too… Coming back from injury and having three soft-tissue injuries, or however many soft-tissue injuries, is a real mental challenge…”
“If I don’t feel 100% confident in my body in game five of the year, I don’t know if that’s really worth it in that scenario. I wanna play every single game. I wanna play 44 games in a season. I’m doing everything I can to do that by putting my body in my best position I can too.”
“I feel really good and really confident in my body, but there’s moments where I still struggle a little bit and I get in my head and things like that, and I’m sore. Like, that’s just the reality of it. You can ask any athlete. You can ask any basketball player, women’s basketball players, or any athlete around the country in any professional sport. They’ll tell you the same exact thing.”
While there have been wild speculations that she was “serving some form of suspension” handed down by the Fever or that head coach Stephanie White and the WNBA itself have an underlying vendetta against the former Hawkeye, Clark’s comments put those theories to rest by expressing how she cares deeply about her career longevity and ability to perform at full health every game.
With the Fever idle until Thursday, May 28, when they travel to San Francisco, Calif., for the second half of a home-and-home series against the Golden State Valkyries, Clark will certainly have an ample amount of time to get rest and treatment before heading out west.
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This article originally appeared on Hawkeyes Wire: Caitlin Clark comments on WNBA, Indiana Fever injury saga
Reporting by Scout Springgate, Hawkeyes Wire / Hawkeyes Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
