The tea has been absolutely piping hot in the WNBA this week.
There have been storylines left and right that have led to heavy online discourse resulting in not only some high drama, but in some situations, unacceptable behavior.
Specifically, this refers to the racist death threats directed at Mercury star Alyssa Thomas after she committed a hard foul on Caitlin Clark.
While no foul was initially called on the play, officials reviewed it —especially after postgame comments from Indiana Fever head coach Stephanie White — and ruled the play was worth a Flagrant 2. The decision also resulted in a one-game suspension, which was handed down the following day.
This disarray led to vociferous amounts of chatter coming from talking heads that don’t always pay attention to the WNBA. And unfortunately for the WNBA, the fallout from all of this came during an atypical week where there haven’t been that many games.
The reason for the light schedule? The league took a break from Monday-Wednesday with the exception of Tuesday night’s Commissioner’s Cup Championship game that was played in Brooklyn, and won by the New York Liberty.
Even without four-time MVP A’ja Wilson, the game was still compelling as Jackie Young (31 points), Breanna Stewart (25 points, 11 rebounds), and Sabrina Ionescu’s clutch shooting from beyond the arc riled up the Barclays Center crowd.
But for some reason, a mid-season championship trophy wasn’t what drove the conversation. Instead, the conversations surrounding officiating heated up in addition to some unsurprising discussion about the WNBA All-Star starters, which were announced Thursday afternoon.
Rhyne Howard plays the same position as Gabby Williams. One was listed as a guard, the other a forward
— Hunter Cruse (@HunterCruse14) July 2, 2026
Either way, there haven't been four better guards than Rhyne this year. Two-way impact matters
Why do I say unsurprising? I previously revealed how difficult it was to submit a ballot this year, but there’s also some chatter about how much All-Star voting is defined differently by different members of the WNBA constituency that voted on this.
What should being an All-Star be about? Is this a popularity contest and specifically who the fans vote most for, or is this based on merit? How much onus needs to fall on teams and players to galvanize their fan bases?
It’s a question I will explore below. But first, let’s return to officiating.
Officiating concerns continue to cause frustration and risk to player safety
The fallout from the flagrant 2 and suspension of Thomas and the hateful comments she and her team have received highlight two greater problems that are still festering around the league.
First of all, what happened to the league’s No Space for Hate Campaign that was established in 2025 and included an app players could use to monitor their social media mentions?
Secondly, it’s clear that the State of the Game Council’s work during the offseason didn’t completely solve some of the WNBA’s issues when it comes to protecting its players. While freedom of movement rules continue to be enforced, they aren’t always being enforced on a consistent basis during high-stakes moments.
“I hope that we can all agree that consistency is the main thing in how we call these games,” Mercury head coach Nate Tibbetts said following the news of Thomas’ suspension. “React to situations like this with consistency. Let’s don’t base it on generational talent, fanbase involvement, All-Star or role players, let’s don’t base it off veterans or young players, or white players or Black players or international players. If this is the standard, even if the roles were reversed in this situation, make the storyline the storyline, and the suspension the same. And let’s just be consistent.”
On Friday morning Clark denounced the online hate that has been circulating in her name, as did White a day prior.
Fever head coach Stephanie White addresses Alyssa Thomas’ comments and “unacceptable” fan behavior: pic.twitter.com/55KB1zIX5z
— Tony East (@TonyREast) July 1, 2026
But Clark, too, made it a point that officiating — the match that lit the fire — needs to improve.
“Overall, the league just has to do better and we have to invest in those areas,” she said. “The technology can get better. We can treat the referees a little bit better. Pay them like they’re full-time employees.”
To be clear, this inconsistency isn’t just happening to just Clark and Thomas. It’s a league-wide issue.
Atlanta Dream point guard Jordin Canada didn’t care if she got fined on Thursday night after falling to the Washington Mystics 81-76. She had to describe the inconsistency that she experienced to media members.
“I think tonight the officiating was awful, horrible,” Canada told reporters postgame.
Canada provided two specific examples that call into question the accuracy and consistency from WNBA officials. Canada explained that when she got her second foul call toward the beginning of the game, official Ashley Gloss came up to her to let her know that Gloss had gotten it wrong and Canada shouldn’t have two fouls.
“But that doesn’t help me, because now I have two fouls,” Canada said.
And then Canada recounted a moment in the second half of the game where she ran over Mystics center Shakira Austin to get the ball and was called for a foul. Moments later, Mystics point guard Alicia Flórez did the same thing to Canada to try to get the ball, but Flores wasn’t punished.
Jordin Canada on Thursday's refs:
— Underdog WNBA (@UnderdogWNBA) July 3, 2026
"I'm going to get fined, but I don't care. Tonight, the officiating was awful ... I don't know how many times Angel has to get beat up in the paint for her to get a foul called ... I thought all 3 refs were terrible."pic.twitter.com/wbzVblvaEt
An opinion piece came out on Thursday from Carol Stiff, a long-time figure in women’s sports media. She proposed a very simple solution to the officiating crisis. She argued that the WNBA ought to employ a fourth official working on the floor during games.
“This positioning will allow the official to be at the best angle to make the proper call,” she wrote for USA Today.
Having more eyes on the floor and stationed in specific spots would help with accuracy and consistency. This could ensure that there are fewer instances when officials go up to players and tell them they are wrong moments after making a wrong call. That must be infuriating for players. It clearly was for Canada.
Were the Atlanta Dream snubbed as All-Star starters?
Both Angel Reese and her coach Karl Smesko took issue with the fact that zero Atlanta Dream players were selected as All-Star starters. The Dream are a top-four team in the league and are powered by some of the best two-way players in the league.
Your official 2026 AT&T WNBA All-Star starters 📝 Aliyah Boston | Fever Paige Bueckers | Wings Caitlin Clark | Fever Natasha Howard | Lynx Olivia Miles | Lynx Kelsey Mitchell | Fever Jessica Shepard | Wings Breanna Stewart | Liberty Gabby Williams | Valkyries A'ja Wilson | Aces #WNBAAllStar | AT&T
— WNBA (@wnba.com) 2026-07-02T17:38:11.719Z
Just a refresher: These starters are determined by scores that come from a fan vote that’s worth 50 percent of the score, followed by media and player votes each counting as 25 percent of the final score.
Breakdown of fan, media and player voting for WNBA All-Star starters:
— Alexa Philippou (@alexaphilippou.bsky.social) 2026-07-02T17:45:05.250Z
To be clear, I’ve looked at the 2026 Collective bargaining agreement, and All-Star starters aren’t given more money than All-Stars reserves that are voted in by the coaches. But for both Reese and Smesko, it’s about the principle of it and the overall respect that the Dream are getting as one of the league’s top teams.
“I mean, it’s really disappointing,” Smesko said about the snub. “We had three players who were so close to making it, and I felt deserving of being starters by the merit of their play.”
Reese agreed with her coach and particularly shouted out her teammates Rhyne Howard and Allisha Gray. But then she also thought out loud about how she and her team could strategize and play the game a bit more in the future.
“You can control the fans,” Reese said. “And just making sure our fan base has support and supports all of us, not just myself, but also for [Gray] and [Howard], because they probably don’t have a huge fan base like myself. And I think my fans probably could have done a better job making sure that we had everybody on their ballots.”
But questions remain: What exactly should All-Star be? Who gets to be an All-Star? Is this a popularity contest? Is this based on merit? There’s a bit of a cognitive dissonance around these ideas that sometimes conflict.
All-Star, at its core, is for the fans and a huge part of it is who they want to see play in the exhibition game later this month in Chicago. But at the same time, sometimes the results show players that are well liked getting significantly more votes than others who happen to put up numbers that are among the best in the league.
For instance, look at where Jonquel Jones, Marina Mabrey and Jackie Young ranked in the fan vote. So which one is it? Or if it’s supposed to be both ideas at once, then what’s a way to continue to balance the scales?
Should the weighted percentage of the fan vote be lowered from 50 percent, especially when there were issues this year with players submitting their ballots around the league? According to ESPN, around 85 players submitted their ballots, which is approximately less than half of the amount of players in the league.
I guess the guardrail that balances the scales, as of now, is the fact that the coaches are responsible for voting in 12 players that make up the reserves, two more than the amount of All-Stars that the fans, WNBA players and media members voted for.
This could all be moot next week when the coaches vote on the reserves. The result could yield that a bunch of Dream players are voted in and problem solved, one of the best teams and their high performers have been rewarded.
I’ll be ready to break down the results either way. Snubs often happen and they often dictate levels of high drama.
