Caitlin Clark's Animated Sideline Exchange With Fever Coach Caught on Camera
The Indiana Fever improved their record to 2-2 after their 89-78 victory over the Seattle Storm on May 17. Star guard Caitlin Clark continued her excellent start to the 2026 campaign by scoring 21 points and adding 10 assists and 7 rebounds in 24 minutes played.
However, it wasn't solely smooth sailing against the Storm for Clark. This was clear by an exchange she had with Fever assistant coach Briann January, which is the talk of the women's basketball world on Tuesday morning.
Some fan at Sunday's game took a video of Clark seemingly in an argument with January (who is the Fever's main defensive coach) on the bench at one point in the Fever game. The two are going back and forth while Clark is clearly frustrated about whatever is being said. After the two stop speaking, Clark gets up and moves to another seat further down on the bench.
She took her blue chair pad and moved away. Later. pic.twitter.com/J1MBpswjxO
— CCFC-New season (@sohali2012) May 19, 2026
Why Caitlin Clark's Bench Moment With Briann January Is Nothing to Worry About
Some social media users are using this exchange as proof that Clark is a diva, or that she doesn't respect her coaches. But this seems like just another attempt to diminish No. 22, as exchanges like this between players and coaches happen all the time at the highest level of sports. They just don't always see the light of day because the player isn't as high-profile as Clark.
Plus, one would imagine that January respects Clark's competitive nature. And since there's no way of knowing what they were talking about, one can't say that either was necessarily in the wrong.
What's for sure is that Clark and January have a cordial relationship with each other most of the time. This was shown when the WNBA's Instagram account posted clips of January working alongside young basketball players in London back in January.
Clark reposted this to her Instagram story later that day and wrote, "I know she had these poor kids just repping defensive slides for hours 😭 @bjan_20".
Perhaps January was upset about Clark's lack of defensive slides during Sunday's game, which led to the dispute between them.
Regardless, January surely knows this exchange wasn't anything personal. She was a WNBA champion and All-Star during her own playing career and can surely respect and appreciate a player's competitive nature, especially someone she has spent as much time with as Clark.
Ultimately, this is yet another unsuccessful example of people trying to find any chinks in the Fever's armor.
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Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the Indiana Fever 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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