We knew Caitlin Clark was going to have a slow start to her professional career because the team that drafted her, the Indiana Fever, hasn't had a winning season since President Obama took office. Of course, growing pains come with her being the No. 1 draft pick, regardless of the sport.
opinion columnist
LZ Granderson
LZ Granderson writes about culture, politics, sports, and living life in America.
You can also count on the veterans to test those top picks, especially physically. It's a rite of passage for star rookies. Hard fouls are part of the game.
Low shots, like the one Chennedy Carter gave to Clark on an incoming play on Saturday, they should not be part of the game. But they are part of the competition. Hence the Rodney Dangerfield joke: “I went to a fight the other night and a hockey game broke out.”
For her part, Clark has repeatedly said she is ready to go through that rite of passage. However, it seems that many of her followers are not.
“It is absolutely outrageous what is happening to Caitlin Clark in the @WNBA,” tennis commentator (and former colleague of mine) Patrick McEnroe posted, without explaining what he thinks is happening to her. Fox Sports analyst Emmanuel Acho posted video of Carter's foul on Clark and asked, “Women want to get her?”
One of the most disappointing synopses came from former NBA player Austin Rivers, who accused WNBA players of resenting Clark because of her fame: “If you were Destiny's Child, she would be Beyoncé.”
He also echoed popular sentiment that hostility toward Clark is rooted in identity politics and that his work alone is the reason he receives so much attention.
“And it's not because she's white,” she said of Clark's popularity and economic importance. “It's not because she's straight; Oh my god, no one cares. And it's not because she's pretty, another thing I heard a woman say who doesn't know anything about basketball… It is because she is an incredible basketball player and talent.”
Rivers, whose father is NBA legend Doc Rivers, could have offered his perspective on what it's like to be tested as a rookie with a target on your back due to fame. He also could have addressed why women's basketball wasn't more popular before Clark. But that would have required nuance. So instead she tried to enlighten everyone by suggesting that being pretty, straight, and white doesn't help a woman's Q rating, which is similar to saying that being tall, dark, and handsome doesn't help men.
Clark has repeatedly said that she wants to be treated like everyone else. And that's how they're treating her. Why do so many people have a hard time accepting that?
WNBA basketball has always been a physical game. At first, star rookie Rebecca Lobo had to adjust from the college game to the physicality of the professional game. When Candace Parker was a rookie superstar in 2008, she found herself in the middle of a fight. Angel Reese was hit in the neck mid-jump less than a week before Carter checked Clark's hip. Then Reese said: “You're not supposed to be nice to me or sleep with me because I'm Angel Reese or because I'm a newbie.”
The problem began when men with very large platforms began making proclamations about Clark's place in history without respecting the history of the game.
Consider this: In any major sport, someone can be considered a contender for “greatest of all time” only if they have won a championship. In fact, the conversation usually starts with how many Super Bowls or rings a particular player has.
Not how close they came but how many were captured.
Except with Clark.
Her accomplishments are worthy of all the attention she's attracted, but the sports media dragged Clark into a GOAT conversation where, by the industry's own metric, she didn't belong. They did it because Clark was great in college, and they weren't. seeing the sport before her like this… she was crowned without context. She's like a tourist who spends a week at a resort and claims to know the local culture better than the people who live there.
And now there's this outcry from casual fans who are shocked to discover that the WNBA is much tougher than college. Something that would not have to be explained at all if professional women's basketball was given the attention it has always deserved.
Clark doesn't need protection. She's a talented player who's learning the ropes, not a damsel in distress.
