Alyssa Thomas’s flagrant foul on Caitlin Clark has triggered social media backlash and threats. On June 24, Thomas made hard contact with Clark’s throat, which was upgraded to a Flagrant 2 after review. The social media storm that followed has stretched on for over a week. On June 30, Thomas’s teammate DeWanna Bonner told The Athletic’s Annie Costabile that she has received similar treatment on social media since the Fever waived her in 2025. Now, Costabile has addressed comments on the difference in coverage when Clark is on the receiving end.

“I also want to say, to all of the comments that followed that reporting questioning why we aren’t reporting on threats made to Caitlin Clark, the whataboutism in this league has got to stop,” Costabile said on No Offseason.

“It’s so annoying. First off, we haven’t reported—or I can say I haven’t reported—on explicit threats made to Caitlin Clark because those threats have not been sent to me.”

“The public threats or public harassment posted to players on social media are very different from direct messages sent to players through their social media and to their private phone numbers, which is what happened to DeWanna Bonner,”

Costabile dismissed any implications that she had shown bias in reporting, saying, “I’m not reporting that this hasn’t happened to other players, but all I can do is report what I know.”

In her June 30 article for The Athletic, Costabile chose not to share the content of “nearly a dozen texts, direct messages and comments on her social media pages sent to Bonner and her family via social media and personal cell phone numbers.”

That’s because those were personal messages that DeWanna Bonner chose to disclose and spoke about during her conversation with Costabile. Those messages, which haven’t stopped over a year after Bonner left the Fever, are completely different than public threats from trolls, which are available for everyone to see. It is an invasion of privacy.

Meanwhile, Caitlin Clark’s immediate response to the Alyssa Thomas backlash that brought DeWanna Bonner’s experience to light has been widely reported. While Clark did agree that Thomas’s contact was indeed a flagrant foul, she finds the backlash unacceptable.

“Harassment, hate, none of that is OK. That goes for the opposing teams we play, that goes for my teammates, that goes for my coaches,” Clark told the media on Friday, finally breaking her silence on the incident.

“There should never be question of character, like I’ve always stood up here and said that, and that’s truly what I believe, that’s how I was raised. So, none of that is OK, and I don’t want anyone to experience that.”

The incident during the Mercury vs. Fever that started it all is nearly two weeks old now. Both players and the league have responded, condemning the personal attacks on Thomas. However, it seems the debate around it has refused to die down.