Sports

If anyone knows what Caitlin Clark is experiencing, it's Diana Taurasi … to an extent

Published

2 years ago

July 2, 2024

If anyone knows what Caitlin Clark is experiencing, it's Diana Taurasi … to an extent

PHOENIX — Caitlin Clark was on the bench, for once, clapping as the final seconds ticked here Sunday. The Indiana Fever rookie celebrated an 88-82 win over the Phoenix Mercury with teammates, and then she was surrounded by television cameras and photographers. As she spoke to an ESPN reporter, Diana Taurasi walked past 20 feet away, headed for the home locker room.

This contest was big for the Fever, its first victory over a winning team in 20 tries, but it also presented a before-and-after picture that was impossible to ignore. Clark, 22, is the hotshot rookie, the future of the WNBA. Phoenix’s Taurasi, 42, is the league’s career scoring leader, someone who has a street named after her outside the arena.

In front of a sold-out crowd at Footprint Center, Clark was steady over 39 minutes. Although she shot 4 of 14, she finished just shy of her first professional triple-double with 15 points, 9 rebounds and 12 assists. “My gosh … she’s just an incredible passer,” Indiana coach Christie Sides said. “She just finds the plays that need to happen.”

Taurasi posted 19 points, 3 assists and 3 rebounds in 32 minutes. Two nights earlier, in a home win over the Los Angeles Sparks, Taurasi had buried five 3-pointers. Against the Fever, she shot 2 of 10 from deep, never finding an offensive rhythm.

a near triple-double from Caitlin Clark in today’s win over Phoenix 😈 pic.twitter.com/KSJriLAb3l
— Indiana Fever (@IndianaFever) June 30, 2024
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Aside from the courtside interview, during which she praised her team’s resilience, Clark didn’t talk to reporters after the game. Sides said the guard did not feel well and needed to meet with the trainer. It’s also a fair bet Clark didn’t want to be put into position to answer questions about beating Taurasi, the rising star toppling a legend. In some ways, this has been a challenge for the entire Indiana franchise.

This weekend Sides twice was asked to assess Clark’s performance. Twice she focused her answer more on the Fever’s youth and their collective growth. After Indiana’s loss to the Seattle Storm on Thursday, Clark met with reporters alongside teammate Aliyah Boston. After reporters directed a fifth straight question to Clark, Clark waved her hand and said, “Ask Aliyah a question.”

If anyone can relate, it’s probably Taurasi, but this comes with an asterisk. Twenty years ago, she was in a similar situation. Like Clark at Iowa, Taurasi had finished her college career at Connecticut as the best player in the sport. She was the No. 1 pick of the WNBA Draft and was expected to elevate the league. The difference was media attention. Since joining the league, Clark has been the focus of countless debates — some on basketball, others on race. She has learned that anything she says can become a national headline or conversation.

Perhaps that explains her reaction Saturday when asked about the WNBA All-Star Game, which takes place July 20 in Phoenix. Even though Clark ranked second in recent fan voting, she didn’t want any part of the conversation. “I don’t know if I’ll be there,’’ she said after practice at Arizona State University. “I’m not going to talk in hypotheticals. My focus is on playing basketball. All that takes care of itself.”

In the same media session, Clark was asked for her first memory of Taurasi, a difficult task considering she was only 2 when Taurasi first joined the WNBA. But after thinking a second, Clark said Taurasi was always someone she associated with women’s professional basketball. She appreciated the intensity and fire in which Taurasi played, and called Sunday’s game a chance to compete against the best, “a dream come true.”

“That’s somebody I grew up idolizing and looking up to and wanting to be like one day,’’ Clark said. “I don’t know if there’s going to be many people to be able to do it like her.”

As a Phoenix rookie in 2004, Taurasi instantly became the face of the franchise. Her first home game drew 10,493 fans, the most for an opener in three years. Before many road games that season, Taurasi met pregame and talked with a select group of 50 fans. Former Phoenix general manager Seth Sulka told reporters at the time that the attention was unlike anything he had seen in the WNBA.

“I loved it,” Taurasi said when asked about this Sunday. “I just loved to play basketball. I didn’t care too much about outside noise or what people thought of me. I enjoyed every minute. Being a rookie was cool, man. It was fun. You could do whatever you want, you didn’t know any better. Being in Sports Illustrated, Slam … ESPN the Magazine.”

Taurasi glanced at a young reporter in the room.

“You’re too young. You don’t know what I’m talking about,” she said.

Like Clark, Taurasi still had to deal with physical play, with veterans trying to put her in her place. Opponents respected her talent, but they made her earn their respect. On April 5, while providing TV commentary during the women’s Final Four, Taurasi recalled a “Welcome to the WNBA” moment and how an intimidating defender named DeLisha Milton-Jones twice elbowed her in the face. It set up a rivalry of sorts.

During a recent phone conversation, Milton-Jones, the coach of the women’s program at Old Dominion, laughed. She had seen Taurasi’s comments on social media. “I’m like, ‘Invite me on your show so I can tell them the other side,”’ she said.

Milton-Jones was aware of Taurasi’s skill. In the WNBA, she saw it up close. How Taurasi manipulated the game with her vision. How she understood spacing and timing. How she applied a point guard’s touch to multiple positions. But what impressed Milton-Jones most was how Taurasi arrived with tricks that took most rookies a season or two to learn.

Milton-Jones said that when she elevated for a jump shot, Taurasi would poke her in the stomach, just hard enough to make her flinch and throw off her shot. On offense, Taurasi would come off a pindown and try to jam Milton-Jones to try to create space.

“She would literally punch me in the stomach,’’ Milton-Jones said. “Then she would blast off wide open. My coach is yelling at me like, ‘You need to be guarding her!’ And I’m like, ‘She just punched me in the stomach!’ She was feisty and crafty and she had this vet savvy-esque play to her game.”

(Responded Taurasi outside the media room Sunday: “I think it was my upbringing. Italian Argentines, we’re sneaky. We’re always trying to find an advantage somehow. In the game of basketball, there’s games within the game. And when you’re not physically gifted as much as other people, you have to find little ways to get that edge.”)

Carrie Graf, who coached Taurasi her first two pro seasons, said Taurasi’s biggest flaw was with the referees. She was too harsh. Instead of yelling in their faces, she told Taurasi to use her charisma. To remember that officials are people. But there was no questioning her readiness.

“I can picture this shot like it’s a photograph,’’ Graf said on the phone from Australia. “She’d get in the lane and she’d be up against the tall timbers. She’s on the right side and she extended her right arm out like it was an elevated hook shot. And then with her left hand, the shot blocker is coming in, and while she’s in the air, she goes up and grabs the shot blocker’s arm to clear some space so she could put the ball on the rim. Women just weren’t doing that stuff back then.”

Diana Taurasi drives against Caitlin Clark in Sunday’s game. (Chris Coduto / Getty Images)

Clark has this quality as well, but instead of hanging in the air, it’s pulling up from the logo, a trademark move that has made her famous within the sport. She did this twice Sunday, igniting the crowd. Even in Phoenix, the “Clark” jerseys outnumbered Phoenix players’ in many sections of the arena.

Caitlin Clark showing off her deep range with another logo three 🎯 pic.twitter.com/IX8wnVb3g4
— Indiana Fever (@IndianaFever) June 30, 2024
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Clark is still navigating this transition. Like she has all season, she forced too many passes Sunday, resulting in 6 turnovers. She tried a behind-the-back pass that had little chance. She misfired on a lead pass in transition. She lost the ball and fell to the court.

Before the game (Clark meets with reporters before every contest), she had said her biggest adjustment had simply been the pace of everything. After losing to South Carolina in the NCAA national championship, Clark returned to Iowa City for a day and “then my life kind of changed,” she said.

After the draft, Clark moved to Indianapolis. May 3, she played her first preseason game. She hasn’t slowed since, playing 20 games for the 8-12 Fever. The exciting part is she knows she has room to grow, mastering details that can elevate her game. The frustrating part is she hasn’t had much practice time to do so.

“I had to learn game to game,” Clark said. “That’s kind of been the biggest adjustment.”

Taurasi predicted as much. She didn’t mean it as a shot at Clark and the league’s talented rookies. Only that this transition often takes time. In a Phoenix radio interview, Taurasi compared it to a college quarterback adjusting to the NFL. After Sunday’s loss, she expressed how much she respects how Clark has handled it.

“It’s amazing what Caitlin has been able to do,” Taurasi said. “Her short career so far has been nothing short of remarkable. The one thing that I really love about her is she loves the game. You can tell she’s put the work in. And even throughout her short WNBA career, it’s been a lot of pressure, a lot of things thrown at her, she keeps showing up and keeps getting better every single game. Her future is super bright.”

(Top photo: Kate Frese / NBAE via Getty Images)

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Sports

How Alex Palou became IndyCar’s most successful driver — and why he rejected F1

Published

2 minutes ago

April 17, 2026

Press Room

How Alex Palou became IndyCar’s most successful driver — and why he rejected F1

Alex Palou’s 2025 season was the best for an IndyCar driver in nearly 20 years.

He won a career-high eight races, including the Indianapolis 500. He won his third straight series title and his fourth championship overall. He made the podium 13 times in 17 races.

Yet if you ask Palou, he’ll tell you he’s going into Saturday’s qualifying for Sunday’s Grand Prix of Long Beach needing to prove himself all over again.

“Who cares about what we did last year?” he said. “It’s cool to have four championships, but the only important year is 2026. Everybody started with zero points on the board and we need to do it all over again.”

That’s far easier said than done, although Palou is off to a fast start in his quest for a fifth championship having won two of the first four races on the IndyCar schedule to stand second in the driver standings, two points behind defending Long Beach champion Kyle Kirkwood.

“Last year was magical,” said Palou, who has captured 10 of the last 21 checkered flags, dating to 2024. “As an athlete you always want to keep on improving, but I need to be realistic and understand that to win eight races in IndyCar in the same year, it’s pretty tough to beat.

“So although I want to achieve that, we just need to take 2026 separately and just try our best, try to win as many races as possible and then obviously fight for the [Indy] 500 and the championship.”

Winning Long Beach, one of the few prizes on the IndyCar circuit that has eluded him, would be a big step in that drive for five. But that won’t be easy since passing on the tight 1.968-mile street course, with its 11 turns, is difficult. That makes track position important, putting a premium on Saturday’s qualifying and on pit stops in Sunday’s race.

“It’s always super tough to be competitive there,” Palou said of Long Beach, where he finished second last April, giving him three straight podium finishes. “One of the only bad things about street racing [is] that it’s really tough for us to overtake with how tight the tracks are and all the bumps.

“It just makes it super challenging.”

Alex Palou competes during the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg in Florida on March 1.

(David Jensen / Getty Images)

Not as challenging as the race Palou, the most successful Spanish driver in IndyCar history, had to run just to get into a race car.

As a boy growing up in the tiny Catalan village of Sant Antoni de Vilamajor, Palou started kart racing about the same time he started grade school. He was 15 when he finished second in the 2012 European karting championship yet he didn’t see much of a future beyond that.

Lewis Hamilton had finished in the same spot 13 years earlier, then went on to become the most successful Formula One driver in history. But England has a long-established history with open-wheel racing and Spain did not.

“He came from nothing, showing up at a carting track and then having these big dreams and aspirations. And here he is,” said Barry Wanser, the senior manager of IndyCar operations for Chip Ganassi Racing.

“I know he’s very proud he’s the first Spaniard to win the Indianapolis 500. That’s just absolutely incredible.”

But that was never the goal.

“Honestly,” Palou said, “my goal was just to have fun. When we started, I never wanted to be a race car driver for a living. I never thought that it would be possible.”

Before Palou, Fernando Alonso, a two-time F1 champion, was Spain’s most successful open-wheel driver. After Alonso is Carlos Sainz Jr., who has won four F1 races; Pedro de la Rosa, who made more than 100 F1 starts but climbed the podium just once; and Oriol Servià, who ran 79 IndyCar races in nine years but never placed higher than fourth before retiring in 2019, one year before Palou made his debut in the series.

Aside from Alonso, those drivers were good but not great, leaving the road from Spain to success in open-wheel racing a narrow one. That’s a path Palou is now widening.

“I would say that for sure it’s helping future generations that I’m here and that I had success,” he said, “just because they can know that with a normal European background you can come to the U.S. and fight for wins and championships.”

Alex Palou celebrates after winning the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on March 1.

Wanser said what makes Palou so good is his feel for both the car and the track and his ability to communicate with his team.

“He has a very unique ability to understand what he needs the car to do to maximize performance on the tires,” said Wanser, the race strategist for Ganassi’s No. 10 car who has sometimes been called Palou’s indispensable partner. “You’re talking about road courses, street courses, for the primary [tires] — the hards and the softs — and understanding what he needs for qualifying and also what the car needs for reducing tire deg[redation] during the race.”

For now Palou, who turned 29 earlier this month, appears content with mastering those skills in IndyCar rather that following the natural progression into an F1 ride.

He said he went “all in” to win an F1 seat following his first IndyCar title in 2021, but doubts about whether he’d be given a competitive car led him to back out. Rumors linking him to Red Bull’s F1 team surfaced after last year’s Indy 500, but Palou shot those down too, saying he was staying with Ganassi.

Wanser, obviously, is happy with that decision and hopes it will pay off Sunday in Long Beach.

“Alex is very young, right?” he said. “IndyCar is so competitive that we could never, ever think about being complacent. If we start heading down that road, we will get beat and get beat often.

“It’s nonstop trying to constantly improve, knowing every weekend we show up to the racetrack it’s going to be difficult to win.”

Sports

Mike Trout’s torrid Angels series vs Yankees ends in historic fashion after he blasts fifth home run

Published

11 hours ago

April 16, 2026

Press Room

Mike Trout’s torrid Angels series vs Yankees ends in historic fashion after he blasts fifth home run

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Mike Trout couldn’t stop rounding the bases at Yankee Stadium during the Los Angeles Angels’ four-game series, and he made history doing so.

The future Hall of Famer crushed five home runs, including a blast in the Angels’ 11-4 win Thursday afternoon, and tallied nine RBIs in the series, which Los Angeles split with New York.

The 34-year-old Trout entered the series with only two home runs and seven RBIs on the season, but he’s heading back home this weekend looking like his prime self after what transpired in the Bronx.

Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels before a game against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, N.Y., April 13, 2025. (Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire)

He also heads back with some history as the first visiting player to hit a home run four straight days at Yankee Stadium, according to MLB.com’s Sarah Langs.

Trout’s five homers are also tied for the most in a single series against the Yankees. Only three others — George Bell, Darrell Evans and Jimmie Foxx — have done so in past seasons.

AARON JUDGE CALLS OUT YANKEES’ OFFENSIVE STRUGGLES AFTER GETTING SWEPT

The latest home run from Trout was a solo blast that traveled 446 feet off Yankees reliever Angel Chivilli in the top of the seventh inning Thursday to make it a 7-4 game. Jo Adell’s grand slam later in the game blew it open for Los Angeles to even the series in the end.

Before that, Trout kicked off the series with two home runs and five RBIs in a wild Monday night contest that ended with the Yankees walking it off. Aaron Judge also belted two home runs in the game, as did Trent Grisham, whose game-tying two-run blast in the ninth inning kept the Yankees’ hopes alive.

Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels hits a two-run home run during the fifth inning against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium April 15, 2026, in New York City. (Dustin Satloff/Getty Images)

But Trout and the Angels got the job done Tuesday night, and the veteran outfielder’s only hit was a solo homer. Then, in Wednesday night’s loss, Trout went 2-for-4 with a homer and two RBIs.

Yankee Stadium in general has been a pleasant place for Trout, a South New Jersey native, as he’s hitting .346 with 13 homers in his career there. He also homered in five straight games against the Yankees if you include the Angels’ last meeting in 2025. That also took place in Yankee Stadium.

“He’s the greatest, the greatest of all time,” Judge said of Trout after Monday’s game. “I know he’s had some tough injuries over the years, but to see himself back in a better spot this year – every time he comes to the Bronx, man, he puts on a show. I hate to see it, but it’s fun competing against a guy like that.”

As Judge mentioned, the Angels are just happy Trout is playing injury-free to start the season, and perhaps this Yankees series has him hitting his stride.

Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels hits a three-run home run in the sixth inning against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium in New York City on April 13, 2026. (Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

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The three-time league MVP is heading to Cooperstown one day, but there is always the thought among baseball fans about what could’ve been for his career had injuries not gotten in the way. Trout played 130 games last season for the first time since 2019.

Now 10-10, the Angels are hoping they can get that output from Trout once more in 2026. They’re looking to get back to the playoffs for the first time since 2014.

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Scott Thompson is a sports writer for Fox News Digital.

Sports

Former Alabama player accused of posing as NFL pros — with wigs and makeup — in fraud scheme

Published

12 hours ago

April 16, 2026

Press Room

Former Alabama player accused of posing as NFL pros — with wigs and makeup — in fraud scheme

A member of Alabama’s 2009 national championship team has been accused of impersonating NFL players as part of a scheme to fraudulently obtain nearly $20 million in loans to purchase real estate, vehicles and jewelry.

Luther Davis, a Crimson Tide defensive lineman from 2007-10, faces felony counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, according to court documents filed last month by the U.S. attorney in the the Northern District of Georgia. An alleged co-conspirator, CJ Evins, also faces the same counts.

The documents mention the initials of three players — X.M, D.N. and M.P. — that were impersonated during the alleged scheme. The Guardian is reporting that those players are Green Bay Packers safety Xavier McKinney, Cleveland Browns tight end David Njoku and Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Penix Jr.

Prosecutors in the court filings said the NFL players were not involved in the alleged scheme.

The documents describe an elaborate hoax in which the defendants allegedly created fake companies and fraudulent email accounts and driver’s licenses to help fool lenders into loaning them huge sums of money.

Davis attended virtual loan-closing meetings wearing wigs, makeup and/or a head covering to disguise himself as players seeking loans, according to court documents.

Both men entered pleas of not guilty at their arraignments but have indicated to the court they will enter guilty pleas at hearings set for April 27, according to court records.

In 45 games over four seasons with Alabama, Davis registered 21 solo tackles, 26 assists and eight tackles for loss. A 2013 Yahoo report alleged that Davis broke NCAA rules by paying five prospective draft picks from the Southeastern Conference as an intermediary for sports agents and financial advisers.