Fever coach Stephanie White dismisses WNBA injury reporting warning: ‘For what?’

If you think the Indiana Fever did anything untoward or wrong in the way they handled the Caitlin Clark injury announcement on Wednesday, head coach Stephanie White doesn’t know what you’re talking about.

On Thursday, the WNBA warned Indiana for violating the league’s injury report protocol after Clark was not included in the Tuesday report before being scratched shortly before Wednesday’s game against the Portland Fire.

White was asked what her reaction was to the warning on Friday during her pregame press conference before the Fever played the Golden State Valkyries.

“My reaction is: ‘For what?’” White said.

She was asked to elaborate and added, “Because we did things the right way.”

The WNBA requires teams to submit an injury report at 5 p.m. local time the day before a game and “must designate a participation status and identify a specific injury, illness, other medical condition, or other reason for any player whose participation in the game may be affected for any reason.” Teams can then begin submitting injury reports at midnight on game days and must update them every 15 minutes before tipoff.

The league admonished the Fever for failing to adhere to those guidelines.

Clark’s abrupt status change without warning set off alarm bells among WNBA media and sparked a debate about the Fever’s handling of injuries and whether the WNBA needs to institute stricter rules on reporting. White said the following day that it’s common for players to have a “pro day” and not participate in practice while not being listed on the injury report, adding that the Fever insisted Clark “was on the court at one point” on Tuesday. As for why she was a late scratch, White said Clark “woke up with some stiffness and soreness.” She denied that the move was part of a pre-arranged load-management plan.

Clark explained to the media what had happened on Friday, saying she intended to play, but it was decided on Wednesday that she would skip the game to rest her back.

“Coming back from injury and having three soft tissues or however many soft tissue injuries is a real mental challenge,” said Clark. “And these are the best players in the world. And if I don’t feel 100% confident in my body, like, on game 5 of the year, I don’t know if that’s really worth it in that scenario.

“I want to play every single game. I want to play 44 games in a season. I’m doing everything I can to do that. By putting my body in my best position I can to, and I feel really good and really confident in my body, but there’s moments where I still struggle a little bit and I get in my head and things like that, and I’m sore. Like, that’s just reality of it. You can ask any athlete, you can ask any basketball player, women’s basketball players, or any athlete around the country, any professional sport, they’ll tell you the same exact thing.”