Nancy Lieberman Says Relationship With Sheryl Swoopes 'Not Happening' As Feud Over Caitlin Clark Continues
Sheryl Swoopes won't let anything, including facts, get in the way of her vitriol towards Caitlin Clark. The former WNBA star was noticeably not on the broadcast call for the Dallas Wings' contest against Clark's Indiana Fever on Sunday, which has only strengthened the theory that Swoopes is a legitimate Clark hater.
Based on comments made by Nancy Lieberman, who slid in for Swoopes during Sunday's broadcast, the drawn-out feud involving Clark appears to be an ongoing situation.
The Wings announced in April that Swoopes, Lieberman, and Fran Harris would be rotating as analysts throughout the season, meaning Swoopes' absence on the broadcast may have been a legitimate coincidence. However, it's tough to believe that was the case given Swoopes' well-documented criticisms of Clark in the past. Even just last week, Swoopes went silent during a Wings' broadcast when Clark's accomplishments were mentioned by her broadcast partner.
Nancy Lieberman Dishes On Sheryl Swoopes
Stephen A. Smith welcomed Lieberman onto his podcast on Monday, and the ESPN analyst stated that Swoopes was supposed to be calling Sunday's Wings-Fever game before claiming Swoopes' absence "no doubt had something to do with the fact that how Caitlin Clark performed earlier in the week, she didn't want to talk about it."
While Liebarman did not confirm Smith's claim about Swoopes originally being scheduled to be on Sunday's broadcast, she did explain that she currently doesn't have a relationship with Swoopes and that reality has everything to do with her criticisms of Clark.
"I called her when Caitlin was still playing at Iowa, and she had just broken [Pete] Maravich’s record," Lieberman explained to Smith. "You know, there was this quote by Sheryl that said ‘Caitlin was 25 years old, she was a fifth-year senior, she was taking 40 shots a game, her record was illegitimate.’"
"I got off the treadmill, and I called her as a friend and said ‘you can say whatever you want, you can have your own opinion about anybody, but you do have to get the statistics right, facts matter.’ If you did get ahead of this and say ‘hey, I made a mistake on my numbers,’ then this thing is over and everybody respects you for your opinion."
"Well, she got upset with me on the phone and I was like ‘Sheryl, I’m not doing anything to hurt you, we're just sharing, we're talking,' and so our relationship is not happening at this point. I tried talking to her at the Final Four, she didn't want to talk to me."
Swoopes responded to the clip of Lieberman on social media and accused her of "trying to do" something with Stephen A. Smith before explaining that her life is just fine without Liebermann in it.
With WNBA fans noticing Swoopes' absence during Sunday's broadcast, her mentions on social media were flooded with questions about what exactly was going on. Swoopes responded by sharing private messages with Clark about a previous "misspeak" the commentator made in February (the same comment Lieberman was referring to when she called her).
While Swoopes sharing private messages does confirm that she reached out to Clark and apologized, that doesn't mean that she has ill will towards the soon-to-be WNBA Rookie of the Year.
The stone-cold facts of the situation are that Swoopes has been critical of Clark on multiple occasions, publicly, she was not on the call for the Wings' contest against the Fever on Sunday, and she burned a bridge with Lieberman in the middle of all of this.
The odds of us seeing the demise of Swoopes' broadcasting career in real-time are much, much greater than it simply being a coincidence that she was simply absent from the broadcast because of pure coincidence.