WNBA athlete Brittney Griner, known for her recent arrest in Russia, has been in the spotlight lately. On May 22, 2025, a video surfaced showing Griner possibly using derogatory language towards Caitlin Clark after a game between her team, the Atlanta Dream, and Clark’s Indiana Fever. However, since there was no audio recording, doubts arise about the exact words Griner used and whom they were directed at. To avoid any confusion in the future, Griner made sure to make herself heard by interrupting a halftime interview during the Dream’s game on May 24, 2025, to lambaste the game officials with profanity. Quite the display of sportsmanship.
The incident involving Griner on May 22 caught the attention of Riley Gaines, a vocal advocate for maintaining women’s sports exclusively for women.
The actual content of Griner’s remarks and the intended recipient are still unclear as neither Griner, Clark, the respective teams, the WNBA, nor ESPN have addressed the issue publicly yet.
ESPN has also missed Griner berating the officials on May 24 (language warning).
About the only thing left for Griner to do this season is throw hands. The season is barely underway, so plenty of time remains for such.
Snark aside, if Griner said what she stands accused of saying about Clark, it is not a good look for her or the WNBA. Players trash-talking one another has been part of sports since the original Olympics in Greece when two marathon participants spent the race’s entirety insisting the other’s technique was to running what Pandora was to following instructions. Racially-charged epithets, however, are unacceptable regardless of originator or subject. Also unacceptable is dropping bombs on live TV when you know the sound is on.
It’s not as if this is the first time the WNBA has had an issue with players doing a much better job of playing Mean Girls instead of basketball. Not that you would know it from watching most any given broadcast of a WNBA game, with the announcers seemingly mandatory unrelenting onslaught of lavish praise on all participants for so little as successfully not tying their shoelaces together before running onto the court, but a lot of WNBA players are not very good. Sadly, far too often, it appears that the fundamentals of shooting the ball — the ABCs, if you will — suffer from the misinterpretation of being Airball, Brick, and Clunker. When a player with authentic skill, such as Clark, comes along, instead of responding by putting in the work to up their game, a lamentable number of players spend their time being put out of shape while bathing in their tears.
If the WNBA wishes to be taken seriously as a professional sports league, it must embrace the practice of disciplining its own without catering to the soft bigotry of low expectations. The incessant “what about me” whining by players such as Angel Reese should be an embarrassment. Likeability is neither defined nor limited by skin color or preference. Neither is boorish behavior excused by past grievances or accomplishments. Brittney Griner’s on-court accomplishments are unimpeachable: a WNBA championship and three Olympic gold medals. Regrettably, the off-court lack of common sense that led to her arrest and imprisonment in Russia has now made itself onto the playing surface and an astonishing inability to keep her mouth shut.
