Former NBA point guard Jeff Teague is not a big fan of Caitlin Clark. Teague pretty much spelled it out for the fans when he claimed that the Indiana Fever star was a good baller, just not a great one. As expected, Teague found himself in hot water after the remark. Former WNBA coach Nancy Lieberman put him in his place with a sharp retort.
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“I love you [Teague]. You weren’t a great player, okay? You were serviceable. I know you made the All-Star team one time. I’m sorry. If we’re gonna be honest, I’m happy for your career,” she said.
Lieberman played at the highest levels for five teams and was a pioneer in the sport. When her playing days ended, she went on to coach both WNBA and Big3 teams and was an assistant coach with the NBA’s Sacramento Kings. She certainly knows what she’s talking about. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like Teague is too keen on taking back his words.
Teague began his response by expressing his regard for Lieberman: “You’re an OG. I respect you, whatever you did in your career. No disrespect.”
Then Teague defended his position. “I was saying Caitlin Clark is a good player. She’s only been in the league for two years. She can’t be a great player [yet]. Only great player who ever came in the league like that was Candace Parker … But [Lieberman] didn’t watch the show because we were debating about who the best player was on the Fever,” Teague added.
Teague accused Lieberman of picking a short clip from the debate and creating a viral moment out of it. He then claimed that if a moment was what she needed, he could have given it to her, since he was “about to be wild on here.”
“What makes it bad is that she doesn’t understand that I don’t care about my career. I literally don’t care about my career,” Teague asserted as the rest of the hosts on the Club 520 podcast laughed. Well, Teague certainly seems to have taken offense, even though he did try to play it cool.
Unfortunately, the Caitlin Clark debate is unlikely to die down anytime soon. It doesn’t matter how much people like Lieberman come to her support, the Fever star is going to be criticized to no end, primarily because of her station in the WNBA.
To complement the number of records she’s already broken, Clark boasts of some of the highest viewer numbers in the WNBA. That said, Teague does have a point. Despite being named the WNBA Rookie of the Year, making it to an All-Star team and torching the league with her assists, Clark is primarily raw talent at this point.
The key to CC’s legacy will depend on how much time she spends at the top of the mountain in the WNBA. Hopefully, she can prove her detractors wrong by the time she hangs up her sneaks and earn that “great” title.
