As my colleague Bonchie covered, college basketball phenom Caitlin Clark is receiving a rough welcome to the WNBA. She’s been receiving hard—dangerous—fouls at an alarming rate.
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Bias:
The WNBA Has Decided to Set Itself on Fire
Why? You be the judge. But it certainly seems like jealousy and resentment are the driving forces behind much of the hate she’s received.
She’s deserving of her accolades; this is not someone who’s getting attention just for her looks or for her social media profile—she’s the real deal:
Top-seeded Iowa, which reached the NCAA title game for the second consecutive season, ended the season at 34-5. Clark finished with 30 points Sunday – scoring 18 in the first quarter, the most in a period in a national championship game. She ends her career with 3,951 points. She averaged 31.6 PPG this season and 28.4 over 139 career games.
Clark’s season has included milestones and broken records.
In a 17-day span from Feb. 15 to March 3, Clark broke Kelsey Plum’s record to become the all-time women’s NCAA Division I scoring leader, passed AIAW legend Lynette Woodard for the major college scoring record, and passed LSU legend Pete Maravich for most career points in Division I history for men and women.
But is this basketball or something far uglier?
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Former Los Angeles Laker Matt Barnes—no stranger to controversy himself—is calling out the discrimination in no uncertain terms. Where the heck are her teammates, Barnes wants to know (warning: graphic language):
Why isn’t her club protecting her? Barnes:
I mean, throughout the season she’s been getting beat up. Hard screens, elbows knocked down. It is what it is. She’s not the first. She won’t be the last. My issue and my question is where the **** are her teammates at?
Where y’all at—where the rest of the Indiana fever at?
The whole Caitlin Clark controversy has been an ugly thing to watch unfold. She is a generational basketball player, one of the best to ever play the game, yet her success has brought out the racists and the dividers as they try to tear her down. What should be a great moment for the WNBA has proven to divide people:
Sad:
The WNBA Debate Shows How Everything Has Become Political
‘The View’ Decries Caitlin Clark’s Success As ‘White Privilege,’ but There’s a Problem With That
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Barnes is appalled:
I’ve seen a couple of girls smirk when she’s got knocked down, half-ass to pick her up. Like, y’all supposed to protect the asset, protect the star. And although this is a team, you always protect your star. I was someone who protected the stars. You f–k with Kobe, [Chris Paul], Blake [Griffin], the list goes on, it’s going to be a problem…
Barnes sums up his rant succinctly:
Got to do better, ladies.
He’s absolutely right. The WNBA, never a popular league, may just be watching its hope of relevancy circling the drain. Clark deserves to be challenged, just like any new player, but what we’re seeing is way beyond the pale.
And her WNBA teammates are MIA. We all know what we’re seeing here, and it isn’t pretty.
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