Women's Fastbreak On SI

RGIII Asserts WNBA Must 'Flip Its Focus' Away From Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese Rivalry

Robert Griffin III declared that the WNBA needs to begin moving away from Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese's iconic rivalry.
Grant Young|
Oct 16, 2023; Inglewood, California, USA; Robert Griffin III on the ESPN Monday Night Football Countdown set SoFi Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Oct 16, 2023; Inglewood, California, USA; Robert Griffin III on the ESPN Monday Night Football Countdown set SoFi Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Many women's basketball fans would agree that the rivalry between Indiana Fever star guard Caitlin Clark and Chicago Sky icon Angel Reese is alive and well, especially after the two went supremely viral for a heated interaction between them during their May 17 showdown (which caused Clark to earn a flagrant foul and Reese to receive a technical).

However, while this rivalry is still attracting attention, the Fever and Sky team-wide rivalry has disappointed to this point, if only because Indiana has won their two games against Chicago this year by a combined 62 points.

This is a problem in the eyes of former NFL quarterback and current sports media personality Robert Griffin III, which he conveyed in a June 11 X post.

"The rivalry between Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese has been such a focal point for the WNBA. The WNBA needs the Chicago Sky to be good, or people are gonna stop caring about that narrative altogether," Griffin said. "The WNBA needs Angel Reese to grow her on-court game to match her off-court fame."

He later added, "If the Chicago Sky can't get better and actually be WNBA championship contenders, the WNBA has to flip its focus to building new rivalries with Caitlin Clark and the rest of its extremely talented rosters."

"The WNBA has no shortage of talented women playing the game. But rivalries? Those are built off of great competition," RGIII continued. "The Indiana Fever and Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese and the Chicago Sky will always be a spectacle, because of the connective tissue between these two women's stories.

"But if the Chicago Sky and Angel Reese can't get better and become WNBA championship contenders, then the WNBA needs to shift its focus to building that connective tissue, and building those rivalries, with its star player Caitlin Clark and the rest of the league," he concluded.

There's no doubt that Reese's 2-6 Chicago Sky squad is a long way away from competing for WNBA championships.

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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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