The Phoenix Mercury are doing everything they can to promote the ongoing rivalry between Diana Taurasi and the next generation of WNBA players. 

During this year’s Final Four, Taurasi threw shade at Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark. She basically suggested the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer would struggle in the WNBA.

Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi laughs ahead of a WNBA preseason game.

“Reality is coming,” Taurasi said. “There’s levels to this thing. That’s just life. We all went through it. You see it on the NBA side, and you’re going to see it on this side. You look superhuman playing against some 18-year-olds, but you’re going to come play with some grown women that have been playing professional basketball for a long time.”

At first, fans thought this was strictly a rivalry between Clark and Taurasi.

Well, on Tuesday night, the Mercury shared a video of Taurasi scoring a bucket over former UConn guard Nika Muhl. The caption for this video was pretty interesting: “welcome to the wnba, besties.”

Clearly, this was a message for the 2024 rookie class. Judging by the responses on social media, basketball fans are baffled by this beef.

“Man I thought the point of pr is to make the team likable…like y’all are getting blown out by 20 read the room,” one person replied.

Another person said, “I cannot believe the Mercury socials keep doubling down like this. It isn’t the flex they think it is. Meanwhile, they got waxed, too.”

The Mercury have already been heavily promoting their matchup with the Fever set for June 30 by saying it’s “The GOAT,” vs. “The Rook.”

We can’t wait to see how Clark handles her first showdown with Taurasi.