Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese have played against each other many times in their blossoming careers, but it looks like the rivals will become teammates in an upcoming exhibition.
A team of WNBA All-Stars will face the U.S. Olympic women’s team before heading to Paris, and both Clark and Reese are among the top vote-getters for the squad.
Clark, who was controversially left off the Olympic squad, is the second-highest All-Star vote recipient with 216,427, while Reese is seventh with 118,490.
In reality, the Chicago Sky center is even higher among the players eligible for the WNBA All-Star team as A’ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu are ranked above her but will play for the American side.
The match will be played in Phoenix on July 20.
Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark have played against each other regularly during their careers
It appears Reese and Clark will team up on the WNBA All-Star team next month in Phoenix
Clark and Reese, who competed collegiately at Iowa and LSU, have seen their rivalry continue in the pros, with the Sky rookie cheering Clark’s body check by a teammate earlier this season.
The two made headlines again last weekend when Reese caught Clark in the face with a hard flagrant foul, though Clark defended it as a “part of basketball.”
After that piece, former NFL player Robert Griffin III said on X that the pair were being “used in a race war.”
He added that it was “not fair to the athlete or the game of basketball.”
Meanwhile, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith declined to use the “race war” characterization when asked about that wording on his show of the same name.
Reese recently hit Clark in the head with a hard, blatant foul while going for a block
“I don’t think so, but that’s a fair question,” he began a segment on the “Stephen A. Smith Show.”
“You could say race, but the reality is it wasn’t really any kind of warfare until … Angel Reese met Caitlin Clark in the NCAA Tournament and smoked her with LSU,” he said of the 2023 college championship.
“Angel Reese is a proud black woman who doesn’t run away from noise and if you look at that, I think that’s what it’s all about. You can say race, I think it’s styles,” he continued.
Clark’s Fever is 2-0 against The Sky this season and the two teams meet again on Sunday.
