Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese at a WNBA game.

Dave Portnoy is not one to shy away from an opinion – not least when it comes to Caitlin Clark.

The Barstool Sports founder has been seen sporting the WNBA superstar’s full Indiana Fever look, rocking up to the team’s 2025 season home opener in a number 22 jersey, shorts and white sneakers.

Portnoy is a Clark superfan and has jumped to her defense once again.
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Portnoy is a Clark superfan and has jumped to her defense once again.Credit: Getty
Portnoy has been in Clark’s corner ever since her college days at Iowa, he is never afraid to say it how it is, and has – on occasion – critiqued some of her performances of late.

But he has jumped to her defense once again after Fox Sports’ Joy Taylor ignited a debate on an appearance of the Joe Budden Podcast that Clark’s popularity has been boosted by her fiercest rival, Chicago Sky forward, Angel Reese, something Portnoy dubbed ‘ridiculous’.

“This is the Magic Johnson, Larry Bird moment for the WNBA. This is great,” Taylor said. “I’m a story teller. I think storylines are so f******* important and I think you need villains, and I think you need heroes. You need s*** to sell. You’ve got to sell a fight, brand all of this.

“It upset white men to watch this strong, winning, unapologetic Black woman be in Caitlin’s face. They still cling to it. It’s now spun to this whole thing where Caitlin’s better than Angel and blah, blah, blah.

“I just said… we would not be talking about Caitlin Clark the way that we do if it wasn’t for that moment with Angel Reese. I will die on this hill. I will die on this hill. I will fight this war.”

Portnoy took offense to this claim, and took to social media to voice his own opinion on Taylor’s rant.

“The dumbest most ridiculous rant of all time,” Portnoy said. “Nobody outside hardcore WNBA fans and LSU fans would know who Angel was it weren’t for her riding Caitlin’s coattails. It’s made her a fortune so kudos to her but this is the dumbest take I’ve ever heard.”

Clark and Reese’s rivalry stems back to their days in college, where in the 2023 National Championship game between Iowa and LSU, it was Reese and the Tigers who came out on top.

In that exact contest, there was some taunting being aimed at each other with Reese pointing to her ring finger, whilst she also imitated John Cena’s infamous ‘You Can’t See Me’ celebration.

Last season, the two star rookies battled it out for the coveted Rookie of the Year award.

Reese's 'You Can't See Me' taunt from the 2023 National Championship game went viral at the time.
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Reese’s ‘You Can’t See Me’ taunt from the 2023 National Championship game went viral at the time.Credit: Getty

Clark and Reese have led the WNBA into an entirely new stratosphere.
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Clark and Reese have led the WNBA into an entirely new stratosphere.Credit: Getty
Initially, it looked like it was going to go right down to the wire, but Reese sustained a hand fracture which saw her miss the final six games of the season.

Once the voting results were released, it wasn’t that close, with Clark just one vote shy of winning the award unanimously.

Throughout the early stages of the 2025 season, Reese has seen a slight dip in her overall numbers from last season, averaging 10.8 points and 11.5 rebounds, though she is still the only player to be currently averaging double-digit rebounds.

Clark has seen her season thwarted by a quad injury, which forced her to miss six games.

But in her first outing back, she led her team to victory, registering 32 points, nine assists and eight rebounds as the Fever took down the reigning WNBA champions New York Liberty, handing them their first loss of the season.

She followed that up with a 20-point outing in a fiery match-up against the Connecticut Sun, which made the headlines following various scuffles between the two sides, with Clark being the primary target, as she often is.

Caitlin Clark has struggled with long-range shooting and turnovers of late.
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Caitlin Clark has struggled with long-range shooting and turnovers of late.Credit: Getty

Reese has become one of the WNBA's best rebounders.
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Reese has become one of the WNBA’s best rebounders.Credit: Getty
However, in her last two appearances, she has struggled with both turnovers, and shooting from beyond the arc.

In Indiana’s 88-77 loss to the league’s newest expansion team, Golden State Valkyries, Clark went 0-for-7 from behind the three-point line, as well as having six turnovers.

The very next game against reigning MVP A’ja Wilson and the Las Vegas Aces, despite finishing with 19 points and 10 assists – making history as the fastest player to reach 400 career assists – she shot just 1-for-10 from downtown, and had eight turnovers, resulting in an 89-81 loss.

In their last outing against each other, the Fever dominated the Sky en route to a 93-58 victory, with Clark scoring a 20-10-10 triple-double.

What is her go to?’ – WNBA legend urges Angel Reese to follow Caitlin Clark example as Sky star struggles against Fever
On the opposing end of the court, Reese could only muster 12 points – albeit a team-high – though she did register a game-high 17 rebounds in the contest.

Whilst they are certainly rivals on the court, Clark and Reese share a mutual respect for each other’s games, and the ‘Bayou Barbie’ spoke out publicly praising her foe long before they both reached the WNBA.

“Oh my gosh, I love Caitlin. We’ve been competing since we were in AAU,” Reese said back in 2023. “It was always fun and it was always competitive.

“One day, hopefully, me and her could even be teammates. Because she is a great player, and a great shooter and a great person and great teammate.”