Former WNBA stars Candace Parker and Elena Delle Donne and coach Cheryl Reeve said Friday the league has to do more to protect players after Alyssa Thomas was suspended one game for her contact with Caitlin Clark. The comments came in Knoxville, Tenn., where Parker, Delle Donne and Reeve are set to be inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame on Saturday.
The suspension followed a league review on Thursday of Wednesday's play, when Thomas was assessed a flagrant 2 foul after no call was made as she appeared to thrust her fist into Clark's neck during a scramble for a loose ball. That sequence has become the latest WNBA news flashpoint in a season drawing more visibility and new fans, and it has put a sharper spotlight on how the league handles contact that crosses the line.
Parker said the physicality has always been part of the game, but the wider audience around the league changes how that gets judged. She said the growth in visibility and the arrival of new fans and new opinions do not mean the standard should stay the same. Delle Donne, who finished her playing career in 2023, put it even more plainly: her back, she said, wishes she had had a little more of that instead of the kind of contact now being debated.
Her point was not that rough play should be welcomed. She said the game is more fun to watch when skilled players are allowed to show what they can do, and that fans do not want to see them simply get beat up. She also said the league is in a learning period in which players and officials have to accept that they cannot crush each other anymore if the basketball is going to stay good.
Reeve, who has been on both sides of the league's officiating debate, said the league needs to do a better job of protecting its players and cracking down on excessive contact. She also said officiating and communication with the league have gotten better this season, a notable shift from last year, when she was suspended for Game 4 of the WNBA semifinals after criticizing officiating and WNBA leadership. Even so, she has not softened on the core issue: some plays are still being allowed to go too far.
That concern reaches beyond one hard foul. While coaching Minnesota in last season's WNBA semifinals, Reeve said Thomas ran into Napheesa Collier while going for a steal, and Collier injured her ankle and missed the rest of the series. The Mercury won that series 3-1, and the memory of that sequence still hangs over the way physical play is being judged now.
Stephanie White said Wednesday that it was egregious for officials to miss excessive actions such as the one Thomas was involved in against Clark, and that judgment now sits alongside the league's own punishment. The unanswered question is not whether the WNBA saw the play after the fact. It is whether Thursday's one-game suspension becomes a one-off response or the start of a harder line on contact that players and coaches have been asking for all season.
