One of the stranger subplots of Caitlin Clark\u2019s rookie season came in the form of WNBA players taking issue with Christine Brennan\u2019s coverage of the Indiana Fever phenom.<\/p>\n
And those issues reached a boiling point in the wake of Clark\u2019s on-court incident with DiJonai Carrington, who hit the former Iowa star in the eye during a playoff game between the Fever and Connecticut Sun last September.<\/p>\n
While it was previously known that then-Sun forward DeWanna Bonner had confronted Brennan for asking Carrington if the swipe was intentional<\/a>, we\u2019re now learning more about the USA Today columnist\u2019s side of the story. Those details come via an excerpt from Brennan\u2019s new book, \u201cOn Her Game: Caitlin Clark and the Revolution in Women\u2019s Sports,\u201d which was published by CNN on Sunday<\/a>.<\/p>\n Just a couple of minutes after Carrington\u2019s interview session was over and she walked away, I was standing near the other reporters at the side of the court when her teammate DeWanna Bonner walked toward me.<\/p>\n \u201cYou disrespected my teammate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n I put out my hand and tried to introduce myself, but Bonner did not want to shake it.<\/p>\n \u201cYou attacked my teammate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n I motioned to my phone in my hand. \u201cCan I tell you what I said?\u201d<\/p>\n I was happy to show her the video I had just taken of Carrington\u2019s answers to my questions. I again tried to introduce myself since Bonner and I had never met, but Bonner wanted no part of that.<\/p>\n \u201cYou attacked my teammate,\u201d she said again.<\/p>\n I tried to introduce myself once more. \u201cI asked her a question to give her a chance to respond to a controversy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou disrespected my teammate,\u201d Bonner said again, walking away.<\/p>\n Bonner never raised her voice, nor did I. It was the kind of tense but predictable conversation I have had dozens of times over the length of my career with professional athletes, especially in the National Football League. When a journalist is doing her job properly, and an athlete is doing hers or his properly, they sometimes will not get along.<\/p>\n This happens relatively often in big-time sports.<\/p>\n Brennan said that she privately received support from a WNBA official, who told her that the league\u2019s players weren\u2019t used to the media exposure they had been receiving<\/a>. She also revealed that she was a part of a group of reporters that was later confronted by Carrington, who accused them of badmouthing her partner, Fever forward NaLyssa Smith after she was removed from the team\u2019s starting lineup ahead of Game 2.<\/p>\n The aftermath of all of this saw the WNBA players union release a statement condemning Brennan<\/a>, who publicly defended her questioning<\/a>. The longtime columnist also denied a report that she had filed a complaint<\/a> with the league over the incident involving Bonner.<\/p>\n