Chiefs Patrick Mahomes drops bold statement about Caitlin Clark amid Swoopes' controversial take: "She's one of the best college basketball players"

Since four-time WNBA champion Sherryl Swoopes expressed her contentious opinion on Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese's WNBA futures, thoughts about the duo have been flying thick and fast.

When asked about Clark's future during a Super Bowl week press conference, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes proved how far-reaching the Caitlin effect has become.

"Just a tremendous player, a tremendous person," Mahomes said. "I've met with her and talked, you can tell she loves the game, she loves playing at Iowa and she's gonna be one of the best college basketball players to ever play, and then she'll go to the NBA and dominate there as well.

"Hopefully I never have to play her one-on-one because she'll for sure be getting buckets on me."

During an episode of "Gil's Arena," Sheryl Swoopes dropped a prediction about the WNBA futures of LSU star, Angel Reese and Iowa's Caitlin Clark.

"I think Angel will eventually be a good pro," Swoopes said. "I don't think Angel will come into the league immediately and dominate the way people think she will."

"I say that for people who have never watched a WNBA game - it's good. There's talent. Like these women can play," she said. "And because there are very few roster spots ... so people look at new players come in whether it's out of college, players who have been overseas and they look at that and say, 'Oh you trynna come take my job.' No. It's not gonna be that easy."

"So will Caitlin Clark be a good pro? Absolutely," Swoopes added. "Will Caitlin Clark come into the WNBA and do what she's doing right now immediately? Absolutely not, not gonna happen."

Caitlin Clark divides opinion

These days, it is hard to find anyone who disputes Clark's greatness. As always with sports, the greatest athletes divide opinion, but Clark's consistency has not wavered

Sheryl Swoopes' opinion on Caitlin Clark did not end with the prediction of her future in the WNBA; Swoopes also put an asterisk on Clark's upcoming record during the same episode of "Gil's Arena."

“If you’re going to break a record, to me, if it’s legitimate, you have to break that record in the same amount of time that that player set it,” Swoopes said. “If Kelsey Plum set that record in four years, Caitlin should have broke that record in four years.

“But because there’s a COVID year and then there’s another year, she’s already had an extra year to break that record. So, is it truly a broken record?”

Given that Clark has only played 123 games in four years, not including her extra COVID-19 year, compared to Kelsey Plum's 139 games in four years, her record will be as valid without an asterisk.