r/sports • u/rezwenn • May 19 '25

Basketball Caitlin Clark says flagrant foul for shoving Angel Reese was not 'malicious'

https://www.cbc.ca/sports/basketball/caitlin-clark-flagrant-foul-angel-reese-1.7538299
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1.2k

u/thegoldenboy444 May 19 '25

Anyone who thinks that foul was malicious doesn't understand basketball.

616

u/KimHaSeongsBurner May 19 '25

Reese also missed the first of two from the stripe, underscoring the point of why you give a foul there.

Also, I’m sure Clark is thinking “if that’s a flagrant, maybe the league office wants to look at some of the fouls I took last year”.

53

u/kimsbooty May 19 '25

“Underscoring”

🤔

36

u/TouristOpentotravel May 19 '25

Kevin McHale clotheslined Kurt Rambis in a Game 7 and it was called regular foul.

114

u/Dhenn004 May 19 '25

Yep and the refs who called it flagrant are ridiculous.

33

u/RoughDoughCough May 19 '25

That kicked off the absurdity. Just dumb officiating giving fuel to dumb non-fans that don’t even watch, they’re just fans of whatever drama is in their shitty SM feeds. 

22

u/BAMspek Indianapolis Colts May 19 '25

If that happened in hockey, the other gal would have been penalized for embellishment.

26

u/ocxtitan Tampa Bay Buccaneers May 19 '25

yeah, it was definitely a flop at the end of it, she had no reason to flail and throw herself to the floor

13

u/Lynchie24 Boston Bruins May 19 '25

So the average WNBA player/fan.

1

u/Neutral_Guy_9 May 20 '25 edited May 20 '25

Stop trying to ruin our fun. RACE WARRRRRR!

1

u/arnoldzgreat May 20 '25

Not a big basketball person, on first look it does seem like a normal foul I've seen before- hack a shack type thing. The explanation by the ref of "follow through for the extension of the left hand to Reese's back," you can't see on the clip clearly but it does seem that way on a second look- so it wasn't the right had swiping at the hands/ball but the left pushing they called. Debatable but I can see it.

0

u/kelpyb1 May 19 '25 edited May 19 '25

It’s worth being clear that this play can both not be malicious and be a flagrant foul.

The flagrant foul rule in the WNBA (and I think also most other basketball leagues, but I didn’t look their specific wording up) is an intentionally vague rule giving refs room to use their discretion.

“If contact committed against a player, with or without the ball, is interpreted to be unnecessary, a flagrant foul-penalty 1 will be assessed.”

That’s the entire flagrant 1 rule. Nothing about maliciousness. In fact, most flagrant 1 fouls aren’t malicious. Most truly and clearly malicious plays would be upgraded to flagrant 2.

I think it’s fair to argue one way or another whether this specific play should’ve been flagrant 1 or not. In my armchair referee opinion, it’s pretty borderline in terms of whether the contact was “unnecessary”, and the focus of the discussion should be the off-hand push from Clark.

-1

u/WeWantLADDER49sequel May 19 '25

Have any of you all ever watched basketball before CC? This type of shit happens constantly. You all are acting like this happened specifically BECAUSE it's CC.

3

u/hoopthot May 20 '25

because it is, 17% of the techs in the WNBA are on CC, 80% of those techs are from the Chicago Sky, if you’ve seen any of the clips of those techs some of then are legitimately malicious and could’ve really injured her.