Los Angeles Sparks guard Kelsey Plum says her postgame remarks after the WNBA All-Star Game were never meant to take a shot at Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever or her teammates. Speaking on Sue Bird’s “Bird’s Eye View” podcast, Plum called her words “a really bad joke” that got misinterpreted.
The controversy began after the July 19 All-Star Game in Indianapolis. Players wore “Pay Us What You Owe Us” shirts in a show of unity during collective bargaining talks with the league. During the postgame press conference, Plum joked that “zero members of Team Clark were very present” for the pregame meeting about the shirts.
Sitting next to New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu at the time, Plum laughed it off while Ionescu added her own joke. But the comment quickly spread across social media, where some accused Plum of throwing shade at Clark and her squad.
The joke that didn’t land
On the podcast, Plum said the questions in the press conference had shifted to the labor dispute, and she tried to keep things light. She explained that her own team had jokingly called themselves “hungover” and she played off that by saying Team Clark skipped the meeting.
“In hindsight, with the shirts and the fans, I should’ve realized it was a bigger moment than a normal All-Star Game,” Plum admitted. “I went into it happy-go-lucky after the win, and I tried to joke. But it took away from what we were trying to do as players.”
Social media fallout
Plum told Bird that once the clip started circulating online, there was little she could do to stop people from creating their own narrative.
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“If you try to respond, you just seem defensive,” Plum said. “So you end up letting it go.”
Despite the backlash, she stressed that every player, including those on Team Clark, supported the union’s message. “We all wore the shirts. We’re unified. That’s never been in question,” she said.
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