Former All-NBA pro jabs at Washington Mystics co-owner for saying WNBA success isn’t ‘just Caitlin Clark’

Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark took the WNBA by storm in her first season in the league. She dazzled folks with her knack for scoring the ball from behind the 3-point arc, as she knocked down 3.1 3s per contest as a rookie.

Plus, after Indiana finished the season prior with one of the worst records in the WNBA at 13-27, Clark led the Fever to a 20-20 record in the 2024 regular season as well as a playoff appearance.

Still, Washington Mystics co-owner Sheila Johnson claimed that Clark isn’t the only person to credit for the fact that the league just recently enjoyed its most popular campaign in years. Johnson also claimed that Clark’s race has played a role in all of the media attention she’s garnered.

But X’s community notes noted below a clip of Johnson that over 30 percent of the Mystics’ total home attendance last season came from the two games Clark’s Fever visited the nation’s capital, and former Golden State Warriors big Andrew Bogut got a kick out of that.

Johnson’s Mystics missed out on the playoffs last season after the team qualified in each of the previous two years. The squad’s record of 14-26 marked the fourth-worst of any team in the WNBA.

Interestingly, Washington’s home record a season ago indicates that the Mystics didn’t have all that great of a home-court advantage. The Mystics ended up with a 5-15 home record, which was actually worse than their road record of 9-11 on the season.

The Mystics went 1-1 at home against Clark and the Fever. The first game between the two teams at the Entertainment & Sports Arena came back on June 7, and Washington lost that contest by a measly two points. Clark dropped a game-high 30 points on 8-of-15 shooting from the field and 7-of-13 from 3-point range.

Then, when the two teams did battle at Washington’s home arena for the second and final time of the campaign on Sept. 19, Washington picked up a one-point victory. Sika Kone came up big off the bench for the Mystics, as she dropped 20 points while shooting 7-of-10 from the floor as well as 5-of-6 from the charity stripe.