WNBA suspends Alyssa Thomas for 'recklessly' hitting Caitlin Clark in throat
Yahoo Sports Daily hosts Caroline Fenton and Coley Harvey react to the WNBA assessing Alyssa Thomas a one-game suspension for "recklessly" hitting Caitlin Clark in the throat in the Phoenix Mercury's win over the Indiana Fever. Watch the full episode of Yahoo Sports Daily on YouTube or YahooSports.TV .
Video Transcript
The league has given Alyssa Thomas of the Phoenix Mercury a flagrant foul two for her fist to the throat of Caitlin Clark that we saw on Wednesday night in the Fever and Mercury's matchup.
She'll be suspended for one game with that flagrant two.
Of course, this was a, a, an, a, a move, an action in the game that was not called for a foul in the moment that has then gone viral on social media.
Coley, did the league get it right issuing a flagrant two to Alyssa Thomas?
Yeah, the league did exactly what I felt like it should have.
I didn't say this enough, when we were talking on the show yesterday, but, I, I, I did expect a level of suspension to come.
I thought a one-game suspension would be adequate.
You know, Alyssa Thomas didn't deserve anything egregious.
There was three games or whatever the case is.
especially with the condensed nature of this season, a one-game suspension, is adequate.
But it was certainly warranted because that was an egregious action.
That was, that was most certainly a flagrant two action.
It, it, it deserved a little more attention than it got from the referees in that moment.
And it, and, and like we even said on the show yesterday, when you look at it in live action, you don't really see anything wrong at the time just because it just kind of feels like a basketball play, and they're stumbling and falling over each other.
And then you slow it down, and you actually have a, a great angle, from, from underneath the basket of what actually transpired, and that was, something that deserved a flagrant two.
She should've been ejected from the game in that moment of time.
But since that didn't happen, a one-game suspension will suffice, and that'll happen, this weekend.
Alyssa Thomas won't be playing on, on Saturday in the Mercury's next game.
that, that being said, I don't know if it's gonna be enough to quiet the controversy.
I think the, the controversy is still going to go on.
The only other solution that I had, when we talked about this yesterday was the league just sitting down with players some point in the very, very near future, whether it's this weekend or, or Monday or, or some point soon and saying, "Hey, this is what we're going to allow.
This is what we aren't going to allow."
We need to come to a little more of a, of a consensus on this.
We need to come to a common ground because we want a, a fun, competitive, intense kind of play.
But we also need to toe the line of respectability in terms of sportsmanship and not drawing, not going over the line and harassing one specific player or ha- harassing any players.
Mm-hmm.
you know, in some ways you could argue that that certainly did feel targeted with Caitlin Clark, but, but Caitlin also has probably, deserved some level of heat.
Not quite that kind of heat.
That's egregious heat.
Yeah.
But, but certainly she may have, have warranted, some level of, of attention and focus, that's been put on her.
Either way, I do agree that the suspension should've, should've happened, so I'm glad they've seen that.
