Patrick Beverley Compares Caitlin Clark-Chennedy Carter Incident to Him Hazing Lonzo Ball

The entire basketball community seemed to have villainized Chennedy Carter for shoving Caitlin Clark from the back in the recent Chicago Sky-Indiana Fever game. Patrick Beverley is one of the few in the hooping world who have actually come out to defend Carter from the backlash. Downplaying the incident to be just “rookie hazing”, Pat Bev justified the Sky star’s action by highlighting how he did the same thing with Lonzo Ball in 2017.

During a recent appearance on Gil’s Arena, Beverley said that he didn’t see anything wrong with what Carter did. According to the Milwaukee Bucks star, any action against a superstar like Caitlin Clark will be magnified by the media. That’s exactly what happened here. In fact, Pat Bev even went on to say that the push from Carter is pretty much a normal thing to happen in the WNBA.

He also said that the Fever rookie would’ve probably expected such a situation to occur. Beverley further drew attention to the difference in the media’s reaction to a similar incident involving him and Lonzo Ball.

In 2017, Beverley was hazing Lonzo Ball in the latter’s NBA debut. Apart from talking trash, the then-Los Angeles Clippers guard was also extremely physical, pushing the “weak” rookie around. Beverley wasn’t criticized for his actions at the time. But now, Carter is being condemned for similar actions.

“I liked the bump. I don’t know if it caused the fall over… She [Clark] was probably caught off guard, too. She probably wasn’t expecting that. She knew this was going to happen. Everybody knew this was gonna happen.”

“I did it with Lonzo Ball, people praised it. They do it with Caitlin Clark, and people wanna go to the farthest extent to smother someone’s name for doing it….That just happens when you are a rookie. It’s part of rookie hazing on and off the court,” Beverley said.

However, we must admit that there is a difference between Beverley’s and Carter’s actions. When Beverley knocked Ball to the floor, the latter had control of the ball and the shove wasn’t serious enough to be deemed a flagrant foul. Whereas, Chennedy Carter sent Clark to the ground during a loose ball, almost seeming as though she wanted to injure the latter.

Hence, it wasn’t surprising to see social media users disagree with Patrick Beverley’s take.

Fans react to Patrick Beverley’s comments

There were numerous users who believed that the media was making it a much bigger deal than it actually was. However, a few users called out Patrick Beverley for the two situations being incomparable.

Further, one user claimed that Pat Bev was showcasing his support to Chennedy Carter to clear his reputation.

The WNBA also seemed to disagree with Patrick Beverley, upgrading Carter’s foul to a flagrant 1 violation. However, the league did not believe that it was a grave enough offense to slap Carter with any sort of monetary fine or suspension.

Clark continues to be mistreated by her fellow players in the league. It’ll be interesting to see if there’s any change in the league’s treatment of the rookie superstar going forward.