Caitlin Clark Had No Words After WNBA's Big Announcement
Caitlin Clark Had No Words After WNBA's Big Announcement originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark is still dealing with the left quadriceps strain she suffered on May 24 against the New York Liberty.
Advertisement
While she's set to miss her fifth straight game on Tuesday, she reminded everyone why she was among the favorites for WNBA MVP in the four games she did play, averaging 19.0 points, 6.0 rebounds and 9.3 assists.
Several hours before Tuesday night's game against the Atlanta Dream, the WNBA announced Clark's backcourt partner, Kelsey Mitchell, as the Eastern Conference Player of the Week.
"For the first time this szn, Kelsey Mitchell is named the Eastern Conference Player of the Week," the league wrote on social media.
Mitchell has stepped up, especially over the last two games with Clark out. In the Fever's 85–76 win over the Washington Mystics on June 3, she put up 24 points, two rebounds and three assists. Then, in Saturday's 79–52 win over the Chicago Sky, the former Ohio State Buckeye added 17 points, five rebounds and two assists.
Advertisement
Following the announcement that Mitchell had won, Clark took to social media, reposting the news with no words.
Caitlin Clark's Instagram story.@caitlinclark22/Instagram
Mitchell was drafted No. 2 overall by the Fever in the 2018 WNBA Draft. She's spent her entire career in Indiana and re-signed on a one-year, $249,244 contract, making her the highest-paid player in the league this season.
The 5-foot-8 guard is a two-time WNBA All-Star and was named to the All-Rookie Team in her first season.
Heading into Tuesday's game, she's averaged 17.4 points, 1.8 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game.
Related: Price Tag of Caitlin Clark's Luxury Watch Before Angel Reese Game Revealed
Related: Candace Parker Doesn't Entertain Caitlin Clark – Angel Reese Rivalry
This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 10, 2025, where it first appeared.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
34 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Caitlin Clark's biceps and the bigger conversation around women and muscles
Thanks to a strain that's left her sidelined for weeks, all eyes are on Caitlin Clark's quad right now. But it's the Indiana Fever star's arms that had people talking in the days leading up to her second WNBA season. It all started in March, when 23-year-old Clark was photographed cheering on her alma mater, the Iowa Hawkeyes, during the NCAA Big Ten tournament. 'Okkkkk hello arms!' one commenter wrote, adding a flexed bicep emoji in reaction to the point guard's noticeably muscular appearance. Those muscles were on display when Clark's team photo was released in early May, prompting side-by-side comparisons to her 2024 physique. According to Clark herself, she's been intentionally bulking up since last year. 'I try to put on some weight and I've been working hard in the weight room,' she told reporters in August. That ramped up in the offseason, per the Fever's head athletic performance coach, Sarah Kessler, who told ESPN that Clark was in the weight room four to five times a week. Cue the toned courtside pic that got tongues wagging in March — and a lot of body discourse that not everyone is comfortable with. 'Speculating about women's bodies generally and speculation of women athletes' bodies is not new,' Michelle Manno, a sociologist, associate provost for community enrichment at Northwestern University and the author of Denied: Women, Sports and the Contradictions of Identity, tells Yahoo Life. 'What stands out as new to me in this case is that the speculation is positive. … For the most part, we're seeing people applauding [Clark's] effort to get stronger and gain muscles between seasons.' Indeed, adjectives like 'beautiful' have been used alongside 'jacked' and 'ripped' as commenters weigh in on Clark's muscles. One X user hailed her as having the 'peak female athlete form,' while an Instagram commenter wrote, 'Girl you show off those muscles. You worked hard on those. Lookin' great.' According to Mikala Jamison, author of the newsletter Body Type, those compliments are a sign of evolving standards. 'It's hard to overstate how much conversations about women and their musculature has changed,' she tells Yahoo Life. She references a survey done by writer Leigh Peele in 2009 (which Jamison wrote about in 2022) in which 2,000 women were polled on their views about weightlifting and the attractiveness of muscles. The majority of those surveyed indicated that they didn't like the look of muscles on their own bodies and figured men didn't find it attractive either. A majority also said they'd rather be 'too thin than either too fat or too muscular,' and when asked which female celebrity exemplified the 'muscular/bulky' look, many chose Hilary Swank (43%) and Jessica Biel (36%). 'There was this sense that any shade of muscularity on a woman's body wasn't something that, at least per this survey, was desired by a lot of women. And there are a thousand reasons for that in the culture and in media messaging,' says Jamison. 'But that has definitely changed over the years, and you see that in things like more women strength training regularly than ever before.' A growing interest in lifting weights, eating more protein and paying more attention to the benefits of building muscle has roots in conversations about menopause and aging. However, the reaction to Clark's body in particular seems to be an indication that the positive messaging about stronger bodies could be reaching and influencing younger women as well. The focus on Clark's muscles follows a general shift in gears in terms of how female athletes — and their bodies — are being discussed. 'People were talking about this a lot during the [2024] Olympics with Ilona Maher,' says Jamison, referring to the U.S. women's rugby player who won bronze in Paris last summer. 'She was on the cover of Sports Illustrated and she's not a super-slender, super-skinny woman. She's very muscular.' After nabbing the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit digital cover last fall, Maher donned a bikini again to pose for the pages of the magazine's recently released 2025 print issue, which quotes her as saying, 'I hope people see my photos and understand that strength can be so beautiful and so feminine.' The latest issue has won praise for featuring various female athletes, including fellow Olympians Jordan Chiles and Gabby Thomas. 'How different my and many other women's lives would be if these strong bodies were the center of attention when I was growing up,' one fan commented. 'If you see more different types, sizes and shapes of bodies, it gives any person who is seeing those body types an understanding that there are many different ways that your body could look, or maybe that you want your body to look like,' Jamison points out. But even still, who people praise is dependent on certain standards. 'If I think about athletes like Serena Williams or Brittney Griner, the commentary around their bodies throughout the course of their careers has been pretty uniformly negative,' says Manno. 'So when I see what's happening with Caitlin Clark, I have to think that her race and her gender expression' — i.e., being a white, straight woman — 'are really helping her in this moment.' At the end of the day, the beauty standard for any and all women continues to be a tight line to walk, especially for those in sports, according to Manno. 'A lot of women athletes still navigate this very strong tension between wanting to be strong, wanting to do the things that they need to do to excel at their sport and still be accepted societally as looking, quote-unquote, appropriately feminine enough,' she says.
San Francisco Chronicle
39 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
McConnell, Mathurin lead Pacers' bench charge in Game 3, fueling 2-1 NBA Finals lead over Thunder
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — TJ McConnell stole inbounds passes not once, not twice, but three times in Game 3 of the NBA Finals. He waved his arms, pumped his fists and shouted at an already delirious crowd to make more noise. Bennedict Mathurin made just about every shot, calm and cool, always coming up with the bucket that Indiana needed. Separately, they couldn't seem more different. Together, they were a two-man bench wrecking crew for the Pacers in Game 3 of the NBA Finals — two of the biggest reasons why Indiana has a 2-1 lead over the Oklahoma City Thunder in the title series. McConnell became the first reserve in finals history to have five assists and five steals in a game. Mathurin — who couldn't play in Indiana's playoff run last year because of a shoulder injury — scored 27 points, the most by a reserve in a finals game in 14 years. Sure, Tyrese Haliburton nearly had a triple-double and Pascal Siakam scored 21 points and Myles Turner battled through illness to have a pair of huge blocks late in Indiana's 116-107 victory Wednesday night, but McConnell and Mathurin were the story. 'Just getting a win in general in the playoffs and in the finals, it's really hard," McConnell said. 'So, obviously, happy about this one, but have to move on. Have to still correct some stuff and make some adjustments.' Game 4 is Friday night. And McConnell was looking ahead to Friday almost immediately after Wednesday night's game ended. Haliburton says McConnell is like a big brother to him, always knowing what needs to be done, always knowing what needs to be said. He delivered on both counts in Game 3. 'He does a great job of giving us energy plays consistently and getting downhill and operating. I mean, nobody operates on the baseline like that guy,' Haliburton said. 'I thought did he a great job of consistently getting there and making hustle play after hustle play, and sticking with it, and I thought we did a great job of just feeding off of what he was doing.' McConnell was the scrappy energy. Mathurin, he was just smooth. Before Mathurin did it in Game 3, the last player who scored 27 points off the bench in a finals game was Jason Terry for Dallas in 2011 — doing so in the Game 6 title-clinching win over Miami. The coach of that Mavs team: Rick Carlisle. The coach of this Pacers team: Rick Carlisle. And when it was all over Wednesday, Carlisle told the story of how Mathurin — after getting his shoulder surgically repaired last spring — got one of those calendars that counted down the number of days he had to wait before being cleared to play again. It was in the Pacers' training room and part of Mathurin's routine was to tear off a page each day. 'He was counting the days down to being cleared sometime in August and then be able to begin training camp, begin 5-on-5 with our guys in September and then be in training camp, really, with his eyes firmly set on an opportunity in the playoffs,' Carlisle said. 'And so, he's putting a lot of work to be ready for these moments.' Mathurin said he learned a lot as well from just watching last year's playoff run, when Indiana made the East finals. 'Just being on the bench and being next to the coaches who were able to run me through the game and stuff like that ... I was fortunate enough to learn a lot and be ready for this year,' Mathurin said. Mathurin has had four 20-point games in these playoffs. The Thunder knew he had the capability. 'He seems to have a game like this in every series. He's a talented player,' Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. 'He was really aggressive. He did a great job. McConnell did a great job. Their bench really came in the game and was excellent.' ___
Bloomberg
an hour ago
- Bloomberg
The Price of Football w/Kieran Maguire: Macro Matters
This week we're talking the economics and finances of the world's game with professor, author, and podcaster Kieran Maguire of Liverpool University. We apologize in advance for those who thought this show was about gridiron football, but with the Club World Cup beginning June 14, we thought it would be interesting to discuss football/soccer finance and some economic implications of the 2026 World Cup in North America. Professor Maguire joins Macro Matters hosts Ira Jersey, Bloomberg Intelligence chief US rates strategist, and Business of Sports co-host and EM Lens host Damian Sassower, chief emerging market fixed income strategist. The group discusses football club valuations, the economic benefits (or pitfalls) of hosting the World Cup, and how clubs used debt to finance player transfers and club operations.
