Caitlin Clark Trades Coach Cheryl Reeve in WNBA All-Star Draft

Indiana Fever star guard Caitlin Clark made a change to her head coach when drafting the 2025 WNBA All-Star Game rosters.
Jun 19, 2025; San Francisco, California, USA; Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) before the game against the Golden State Valkyries at Chase Center. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
Jun 19, 2025; San Francisco, California, USA; Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) before the game against the Golden State Valkyries at Chase Center. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images | Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

The excitement for the 2025 WNBA All-Star Game is already well underway. While the actual game is still 11 days away, July 8 marked when the two team captains, Caitlin Clark and Napheesa Collier (who were the two top vote-getters from the fan vote), had their All-Star roster draft revealed during a Tuesday episode of WNBA Countdown on ESPN.

There weren't too many surprises with the players who were selected. As Clark had wanted, she took her two Indiana Fever teammates, Aliyah Boston and Kelsey Mitchell, while Collier took her Minnesota Lynx teammate Courtney Williams, while also securing fellow UConn Huskies alumni Breanna Stewart and Paige Bueckers. Chicago Sky superstar Angel Reese was also selected by Team Collier.

A few days before this, news broke that Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve was going to coach Team Clark while New York Liberty coach Sandy Brondello was going to coach Team Collier. This is because these are the two head coaches from the 2024 WNBA Finals.

However, at the end of the WNBA Countdown show, a trade was announced: Clark was trading head Cheryl Reeve to Collier (who is, of course, her coach in Minnesota) in return for Sandy Brondello.

While Clark didn't go into too much detail as to why she wanted this trade, it obviously makes sense for Collier to have her own head coach. But fans will be quick to notice that Reeve was notoriously critical about the amount of attention Clark received compared to the rest of the league leading into the Fever star's rookie season.

Not to mention that Reeve was the coach of the Team USA Olympics squad, from which Clark was infamously snubbed. While Reeve asserts she played no role in Clark not being on that roster, which went to the Paris Olympics, perhaps Clark thinks otherwise.

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Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.

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