The speculations surrounding Caitlin Clark’s health ramped up when she mentioned last week that “probable” might be her tag for the Indiana Fever’s games moving forward. Fans have been curious to know if Clark’s lingering back issues have led to this decision to put an asterisk of sorts on her availability.

Ahead of the Fever’s Thursday night matchup against the Golden State Valkyries, Fever head coach Stephanie White was asked about CC’s “probable” delegation. White explained that the team is choosing to exercise caution in these circumstances.

“We hope that what happened last week, doesn’t happen again. Just to make sure that there’s clarity and that there’s no issues with league policy…You can expect it to be “probable” moving forward.”

Even without Stephanie White intending to, her comments provide ammunition to the skeptics who are wondering out loud about the true health status of Caitlin Clark. Veteran analyst Jason Whitlock, for one, has questioned whether the Fever star will ever be truly healthy again, even going so far as to say that the WNBA could be “cooked” if Clark continues to be unavailable.

The two-time All-Star has played in five of the Fever’s six games thus far. This year, Clark is averaging 23.8 points per game in 31.0 minutes of action.

“A Big Nothing Burger”: Sue Bird Downplays Issues Surrounding Caitlin Clark’s Injury Reports

Meanwhile, four-time WNBA champion Sue Bird has expressed her belief that Caitlin Clark’s delegation on the injury reports is not that big of a deal.

On her “A Touch More” podcast, Bird explained that WNBA players’ health and availability can be volatile at times.

“It is common for a player to not practice the day before a game and it means nothing. It is also so normal and possible to wake up the day of the game, and something happened where you don’t feel good and you don’t play…To me, this is just one big fat nothing burger.”

Bird also mentioned the “mental hurdles” that Clark is facing, saying that it’s no easy feat to overcome such challenges.