Ever since Caitlin Clark landed at No. 11 in the players’ vote for the 2026 WNBA All-Star Game, fans have been convinced of one thing: the league is simply jealous of the Indiana Fever star. But is that really the case? Former Phoenix Mercury guard Bria Hartley and WNBA insider Jordan Robinson don’t seem to think so.
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“I don’t know if anyone really goes into it that hard. It’s just, ‘Oh I got to get this over with.’ So I don’t know, you take that with a grain of salt. I don’t think she’s 11. That’s unrealistic,” Hartley said on the latest episode of The Women’s Hoops Show.
And Robinson completely agreed with Hartley’s take. “I’m so happy you said that. This was not planned for you to say that, but you completely make my point: that we’re only getting the votes of 85 of 180 WNBA players.”
“So, right off the bat, that’s insane. That is a whole bunch of votes missing. And that kind of automatically washes away this notion that players are personally attacking Caitlin Clark and personally wanting her to not be a starter or whatever these narratives are running wild with.”
“A lot of people didn’t even care to vote. So you can’t say that they had an agenda when they didn’t even vote,” responded the host.
The analyst also explained that players don’t vote for every guard on the list, because each player votes for their top-four guards.
“So you vote on your top four guards. I think this needs to be spelled out. It’s not like each player who voted listed out their top 11 guards and put Caitlin at the bottom.”
Clark made it to some of those lists, and that averaged to a final 11th place standing in the player voting category.
So whether Robinson’s explanation changes anyone’s mind is another question entirely. The All-Star vote was never the only thing fueling the “jealousy” narrative surrounding Caitlin Clark, so it’s highly unlikely this debate will disappear anytime soon.
Through 19 games this season, Caitlin Clark is averaging 20.1 points and 7.8 assists per game, while also dealing with a nagging back injury. That’s exactly why fans and media placed her in the top three, which secured her a starter position in the upcoming annual exhibition game.
But according to Hartley and Robinson, turning that result into definitive proof that the league’s players are out to get Caitlin Clark ignores how the voting actually works.