DiJonai Carrington Calls Out ‘Character Assassination’ as WNBA Reporter Beef Escalates

Christine Brennan kicked up a storm after she asked DiJonai Carrington about her intentions behind the Caitlin Clark eye-poking incident last year.

DiJonai Carrington Calls Out ‘Character Assassination’ as WNBA Reporter Beef Escalates

Dallas Wings guard DiJonai Carrington (Image via FirstSportz)

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DiJonai Carrington made a name for herself with her elite defensive performances for the Connecticut Sun. It was redemption for the Baylor guard, whose injury concerns dropped her to the 2nd round back in 2021.

She is elite on the perimeter, and hustles after every fast break while trying to block layups from behind. Her competitive drive made her a rightful starter on a team full of All-Stars. All of that culminated in a deserved Most Improved Player award last season.

However, on the days leading up to her getting the award, her name blew up everywhere after poking Caitlin Clark in Game 1 of their 1st-round playoff series. The day before the 2nd game, USA Today reporter, Christine Brennan, asked her if the poke was intentional.

That question did not sit well with a number of people, and some called Brennan out for intentionally trying to push the narrative. Even the WNBPA called for her media credentials to be revoked. Now, the 67-year-old has revealed how it all went down in those few days.

In her book, On Her Game: Caitlin Clark and the Revolution in Women’s Sports, she revealed that questioning seemed to tick Carrington off. The next morning, ahead of Game 2, the then Connecticut Sun guard overheard Brennan and 2 other Indianapolis reporters talking to each other in the cafeteria.

She believed Brennan was instigating talks about her fiancée, NaLyssa Smith‘s possible demotion from the Indiana Fever starting lineup. Carrington was overheard yelling, and Sun staff were sent to remove her from the scene.

Brennan wanted to clear the confusion, but the Baylor star was not interested. Matters reached the higher ups and after listening to the version of the three journalists, a WNBA official revealed that she was going to talk to the Sun about Carrington’s behavior.

DiJonai Carrington calls cap on Christine Brennan’s claims

Once the book was out, excerpts from this section made its way to social media. Fans started to talk about how DiJonai Carrington‘s attitude was suspect the entire time. Once it caught the now Dallas Wings guard’s attention, she shot off a couple of tweets.

DiJonai Carrington and NaLyssa Smith
DiJonai Carrington and NaLyssa Smith (Image via Open Source/X)

The first one was when she posted emoticons depicting a ‘lying face’, cap, and tears of joy. That tweet had her suggesting Christine Brennan was lying about the entire incident, and that there was nothing like that at all. Then she shot off another one.

Defamation of character atp.

DiJonai Carrington wrote on X

The 27-year-old believes Brennan is just intent on trying to assassinate Carrington’s character. There are two such instances now, and she believes players, and the WNBPA were right about the USA Today journalist.

WNBA official slams DiJonai Carrington and players

DiJonai Carrington handled Christine Brennan’s questions about the eye-poking incident rather well. However, her teammates complained about it with their higher ups. Soon it came to the WNBA’s notice, and an official had to come in and speak with the USA Today journalist.

Your questions were not vulgar, rude, or inappropriate. Your questions were fine. Unfortunately, most of our players have zero idea what real media exposure is. They don’t know what real coverage is, they have been shielded at college, and then they come to the WNBA not knowing what real questions are. Frankly, our players just don’t get it.

Christine Brennan quoted the unnamed WNBA official

From this statement, it seems the WNBA official believes their players are not capable of handling questions from the media. Even though Caitlin Clark herself did not appreciate that line of questioning, the WNBA official’s words suggest the players need proper PR training.

Brennan later says, in the excerpt, that such questions are normal in other sports. However, it seems players do say some things that could be interpreted in numerous ways, leading to embarrassing clarifications, like how Clark’s teammate recently faced.

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