The Phoenix Mercury organization has sparked outrage with a tone-deaf cartoon posted on their official social media following a brutal play involving WNBA star Caitlin Clark.
The stick-figure graphic, which has since been deleted, showed former Fever player DeWanna Bonner lying on the ground laughing with the caption: “De-wanna piece of this?!?”
The image was widely seen as a dig at Clark, who was left writhing on the floor in a nearly identical position after being fisted in the neck and throat area during a loose-ball scramble in Wednesday night's game in Indianapolis.
Alyssa Thomas, a Mercury player, was caught on film delivering a cheap shot to Clark while she was on the ground fighting for the ball, with multiple angles showing Thomas driving her fist or forearm directly into Clark's neck and throat.
Video evidence also captured a knee to the groin area during the same sequence, but no foul was called and no flagrant was reviewed.
Clark later left the game with a back injury after another physical play, prompting the Indiana Fever head coach Stephanie White to call out the officials postgame for their failure to call the cheap shots.
White's criticism was centered around the fact that Clark, a "generational talent and a WNBA superstar," had suffered two cheap shots that weren't called, which she deemed "egregious and utterly disrespectful."
