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WNBA Rule Change Draws Attention to Caitlin Clark

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Emily Bicks | Last updated May 28, 2025 5:17 PM ET

The WNBA announced several major changes to the league ahead of the 2025 season.

In addition to expanding the amount of regular season games from 40 to 44 with the Golden State Valkyries officially entering the league as the 13th franchise, they changed the WNBA Finals to a best-of-seven series.

During the first round of playoffs, the WNBA also announced a switch from a 2-1 format in terms of home and away games to a 1-1-1 format.

As first reported by Her Hoops Stats analyst Richard Cohen, and confirmed by the Indy Star's Chloe Peterson, the WNBA made another rule change that immediately drew attention toward Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark.

Cohen posted on May 28, "For anyone who missed last week's podcast: Minor rule-change I noticed preparing for it was that they've raised the Taurasi Line for a suspension to 8 technical fouls in the regular season. So now a 1-game suspension for techs 8, 10, 12, 14 etc. (rather than 7, 9, 11 etc.)"

Clark came dangerously close to receiving a one-game suspension after receiving her seventh technical foul last season. During the 2024 season, Phoenix Mercury star Diana Taurasi, her teammate Natasha Cloud, and Dallas Wings' Teaira McCowan all received one-game suspensions after stacking seven technical fouls.

Taurasi, now retired, also reached her technical foul limit in 2016, 2018, and 2013, when she amassed nine technicals. While Clark received a technical foul during the 2025 preseason, those don't count toward the regular season.

A change to the technical limit in the W: https://t.co/OEEX9NDZBe
— Chloe Peterson (@chloepeterson67) May 28, 2025

While appearing on The Bird & Taurasi Show's alt-cast in April, Clark said her goal in 2025 is to garner a max of two technical fouls. Due to her competitive spirit, few fans bought that as a realistic goal, however, now she has more leeway.

One person commented on the rule change, "good news for @CaitlinClark22." An X user wrote, "Caitlin’s de-escalation committee is breathing a little easier right now." A fan joked, "The Caitlin Clark new Line. WNBA rule change."

With Clark currently sidelined with a quad injury, another fan commented, "go ahead, coach clark. get that bench tech today lol." One woman added, "caitlin somewhere cheesing."

On "Her Hoops Stats" podcast last week, Cohen described how he noticed the change. "The media website for the league and the NBA as well, occasionally update the list of technical fouls. So, you get information on if any of them have been rescinded... and how many each player has.

"At the bottom of that, they have details of when the suspensions kick in and how much each one costs... and I noticed they changed the details on the bottom of the page and given how much of the writing they've changed, it doesn't look like it's a typo for once, which it often is when this league changes something."

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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