The Indiana Fever and the Dallas Wings are all set to lock horns on Thursday, and while many would like the attention to be on basketball with the playoffs right around the corner. But the reality is that it isn’t. The WNBA is currently in one of its most controversial periods, which was ignited after Sophie Cunningham voiced her concerns about transgender athletes playing in women’s sports. Since then, almost every Indiana road game has seen protesters gather outside the arena to voice their support for the Fever guard, while critics have rallied against it. So, with less than 24 hours before the Wings vs. Fever game, Dallas head coach Jose Fernandez has called the non-basketball discourse surrounding the league “really frustrating.”

“I’m not partaking in the circus and everything that takes away from our team, the league,” the Wings coach said, per an X post by Drake Keeler. “This sh– not happening in the NFL, MLB, NBA.”

This will be the third time Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers will lock horns this season, and while the game could help determine which team has the upper hand in a series that is currently tied at 1-1, the conversation around the matchup is hardly about their rivalry anymore. Instead, it has become another backdrop for the ongoing debates surrounding race, gender, and sexuality in the WNBA. But Jose Fernandez’s frustration doesn’t stem from just one discourse.

Just a few weeks ago, the physicality surrounding Clark was a major talking point after a hard foul by Alyssa Thomas went uncalled. The discussion around that incident quickly spilled beyond the basketball world, with political commentators weighing in and turning the incident into a broader cultural debate. Then came Cunningham’s comments about protecting “young girls in a locker room,” which sparked another wave of debate and even led to NBA players declaring for the 2027 WNBA Draft.

Both of these incidents generated plenty of attention and shifted the spotlight away from conversations about matchups and playoff races. So with another Fever game approaching, Jose Fernandez appears to have had enough of that distraction, and that’s a feeling he shares with the Phoenix Mercury head coach, Nate Tibbetts.

“It really pisses me off. It’s disappointing. This is a great league. We’ve got great players. There are great stories, great rookies, great teams… We just spend so much time talking about the wrong stuff, and I don’t know why that happens in our league,” Tibbetts said.

The league has definitely seen a major bump in viewership this season, with a 17% increase from last season, while attendance at games has remained strong. But with the off-court debates showing no signs of slowing down and the Wings and Fever set to meet, Jose Fernandez’s frustration is unlikely to disappear anytime soon.