Fox Sports’ Joy Taylor delivered a hot take about how Angel Reese has impacted Caitlin Clark’s stardom.

Joy Taylor attends the Ballerina Los Angeles Special Screening on June 3, 2025. Joy Taylor attends the Ballerina Los Angeles Special Screening on June 3, 2025. | IMAGO / ZUMA Press Wire

It’s fascinating to think about what the landscape of women’s basketball would look like right now if Chicago Sky superstar Angel Reese hadn’t taunted Indiana Fever icon Caitlin Clark in the waning moments of the 2023 NCAA national championship game (when Reese was playing at LSU and Clark with the Iowa Hawkeyes) by waving her hand in Clark’s face and pointing to her ring finger.

Not only did this moment go supremely viral, but it also skyrocketed both Clark and Reese’s stardom to an unprecedented degree, which both have continued to build upon through this point in their respective WNBA careers.

While there’s no doubt that both players would still be WNBA standouts if this taunt hadn’t happened (and Clark’s popularity speaks for itself), there seem to be some conflicting opinions about how big of a star Clark would be right now if Reese hadn’t made this fateful move.

Fox Sports analyst and American sports media personality Joy Taylor offered her own assessment of this during a recent appearance on The Joe Budden Podcast.

“[The Clark vs. Reese rivalry] has now spun into this thing where, like, Caitlin is better than Angel, and blah blah blah. I just said that we would not be talking about Caitlin Clark the way that we do if it wasn’t for that moment with Angel Reese,” Taylor said. “And I will die on this hill. I will die on this hill.”

While many will likely disagree with Taylor’s sentiment, there’s no question that Reese and Clark have each helped the other’s career when it comes to global recognition.