Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark have been considered rivals since their NCAA days. After their brilliant showdown in the 2023 NCAA Finals, their names started being mentioned in the same breath. As Reese taunted Clark after sealing the NCAA championship, many thought it was just the beginning of a long-lasting rivalry
However, Jeff Teague thinks that the WNBA is partly responsible for brewing this rivalry between the Indiana Fever guard and the Chicago Sky Center.
On his Club 520 podcast, the former NBA star declared that the story of a beef between the two was concocted and/or promoted by the WNBA to grab more eyeballs.
The 2021 NBA champion pointed out that Caitlin Clark entered the league with a lot of hype after a historical college career. However, many folks, who watched her during her final years in college, were losing interest as she transitioned to the pros.
They were less interested in following her pro journey because the WNBA wasn’t a popular league before her arrival. Therefore, the league had to craft a narrative to sustain the hype around the former Iowa Hawkeyes superstar.
Teague explained,
“People love the WNBA, they like it now because she [Clark] was so exciting for them two years in college. She killed her college career, but them last two years she was exciting. The excitement kind of carried over in year one, it already died down a little bit.”
According to Teague, indicating that there’s a beef between Clark and Reese added a little bit of spice to the narrative. He also credited Reese for doing her part to keep the beef alive.
To his point, the Sky rookie took shots at Clark for supposedly getting preferential treatment. She claimed that she deserves as much credit as Clark for popularizing the league. This reignited the competitive flames between the two.
“To keep it going, they had to make it controversial between her and Angel. Angel really kept it going… She kept the beef going and then chasing stats, and sh**, she kept it going. Like now, it’s the battle for the rookie of the year,” Teague said.
However, he reminded everyone that while the race for the 2024 Rookie of the Year provides the platform for a battle between the two, their sophomore year will see a decline in interest in the rivalry.
“Next year, there ain’t no more rookie of the year, y’all gonna be pros. What y’all battling for? Y’all already made All-Star teams and sh**…” Teague added.
While Teague maybe right about the short shelf-life of the rivalry, it was more than just the Rookie of the Year race that fueled the narrative. Reese and Clark’s WNBA battles were also some of the best during the season.
There is a chance that they may soon clash in the playoffs, and that match-up would likely be framed as a battle between two NCAA-turned-WNBA rivals.
While Magic Johnson and Larry Bird played different positions and were in different conferences, they were competing since college, which earned them the tag of the biggest rivals during the 1980s. Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark are charting a similar journey.