Sheryl Swoopes explains mysterious broadcast absence with Caitlin Clark game amid awkward history

WNBA Hall of Famer Sheryl Swoopes addressed a arguable lack from the broadcast booth for the Dallas Wings that occurred earlier this year, a crippled that featured Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever. Swoopes has been a harsh professional of Clark, sometimes inciting backlash from WNBA and media peers similar Stephen A. Smith and Nancy Lieberman. 

Swoopes did not serve arsenic colour commentator for the Wings broadcast connected Bally Sports Southwest successful the team's crippled against the Fever connected Sept. 1. 

Swoopes said that the crushed for this was due to the fact that she was lone signed to a seven-game declaration with the Wings and that she had already fulfilled each the appearances connected those presumption earlier the Sept. 1 crippled against the Fever. She gave the mentation successful an interrogation connected WNBA rookie Angel Reese's podcast connected Thursday portion besides addressing rumors that she had been fired.

"They were like, ‘Oh Sheryl was replaced, they fired her, they kicked her disconnected the crippled due to the fact that it’s Caitlin Clark, and she can't bash that game,'" Swoopes said. "I was contracted to bash 7 Dallas Wings games, truthful I was ne'er expected to bash that crippled anyway. But due to the fact that of everything else, they conscionable benignant of figured that due to the fact that I didn't bash that game, well, they fired me, but truly my declaration was up … and that was it, it wasn't a thing." 

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Sheryl Swoopes of the Houston Comets poses for a representation during Game 3 of the WNBA Finals connected September 5, 1999, successful Houston. (Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images)

Speculation arsenic to wherefore Swoopes was not connected the telephone for the Fever crippled was influenced by Swoopes' past with Clark. Swoopes has been a professional of the rookie phenom since her assemblage vocation astatine Iowa and adjacent made misleading suggestions astir her assemblage vocation successful February. 

Swoopes suggested that Clark played 5 years astatine Iowa and got an other twelvemonth of eligibility owed to the COVID-19 pandemic. Swoopes made the comments during an quality connected "Gil's Arena" podcast successful February successful an effort to discredit the information that Clark broke the NCAA all-time scoring record. 

Then connected Sept. 2, the nighttime aft the Wings' nonaccomplishment to the Fever that Swoopes did not call, the Hall of Famer posted alleged screenshots of a speech with a interaction named Clark successful which she apologized for the statements. The adjacent day, Swoopes hosted a nationalist spaces connected X wherever she addressed the mendacious claims portion saying she would garbage to apologize to anyone but Clark. 

Swoopes blamed disorder implicit the interruption of the COVID-19 pandemic connected the 2020-2021 assemblage hoops play for the mistake of suggesting Clark played a 5th twelvemonth connected the podcast. 

INSIDE CAITLIN CLARK AND ANGEL REESE'S IMPACT ON MEN'S BASKETBALL

Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever drives to the handbasket during the crippled against the Connecticut Sun during Round 1 Game 2 of the WNBA Playoffs connected Septmember 25, 2024, astatine the Mohegan Sun Arena successful Uncasville, Conn. (Chris Marion/NBAE via Getty Images)

"With COVID and each of those things, I thought, honorable mistake, but possibly I'm not allowed to marque those. I thought it was Caitlin's 5th year," Swoopes said. "So, the shaper of the amusement looked it up and said, ‘No, it was her 4th year,’ connected the amusement … I said ‘ You cognize what, if it is her 4th year, and she breaks the record, past great, it’s a morganatic record.'"

Lieberman, who besides serves arsenic a colour commentator for the Wings and called the games against the Fever, said during an quality connected "The Stephen A. Smith Show" that aforesaid week that her narration with Swoopes is "pretty overmuch done" owed to a caller statement astir Swoopes' incorrect statements astir Clark. 

"I called her arsenic a person and I said, ‘You tin accidental immoderate you privation … but you bash person to get the statistic right. I mean, facts matter," Lieberman said. "She got upset with maine connected the phone, and I was like, ‘Sheryl, I’m not doing thing to wounded you.’ … So, our narration beauteous overmuch is not happening astatine this point. I tried to speech to her astatine the Final Four, she didn’t privation to speech to me. My beingness is going to beryllium bully oregon large with oregon without Sheryl Swoopes successful my life. I’d alternatively person her successful it."

Swoopes denied the conception that that telephone telephone ever adjacent took spot during her nationalist X spaces event. 

Swoopes much precocious said during different quality connected "Gil's Arena" successful September that she didn't judge that Clark's rookie play was "dominating" contempt the information that Clark broke the single-season assists record, rookie scoring grounds and finished top-5 successful MVP voting. 

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WNBA Most Valuable Player Sheryl Swoopes of the Houston Comets poses for photographers September 18, 2005, astatine ARCO Arena successful Sacramento, California. (Rocky Widner/NBAE via Getty Images)

"I’ve ne'er questioned if Caitlin was a bully player; I deliberation she’s a hellhole of a player," Swoopes explained. "My happening was, I thought it would instrumentality her immoderate clip to set to being a professional, and to me, I deliberation that’s precisely what she’s done."

However, Swoopes insists that she has a bully narration with Clark and immoderate speculation that the 2 don't similar each different isn't true. 

"A batch of the worldly that radical are trying to accidental is there, it conscionable does not exist," Swoopes said. "I'm bushed of it, I truly am, and I tin lone ideate that she has to beryllium bushed of it arsenic well. But determination was thing there.

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