WNBA star Caitlin Clark recently had a standout performance, leading the Indiana Fever to a victory over the Washington Mystics. Following the close win, the rookie earned her name in the WNBA record books. Since recently joining the league after concluding her college career, Clark has had a strong season.
After finishing the game with 30 points, Clark had 202 points, 76 assists, and 64 rebounds in the first 12 games of the season, making her the fastest WNBA player to reach 200 points and 50 assists in the league’s history. Furthermore, she tied the WNBA record with New York Liberty player Sabrina Ionescu with seven 3-pointers.
In post-game comments, Clark noted that she was pleased with her strong performance. “It felt good to shoot the ball well,” she said. “I feel like even my misses were right there.” Despite her impressive stats on the seasons, the Indiana Fever star was met with disappointing news that she did not make the U.S. Olympic national women’s basketball roster.
Upon entering the WNBA, Caitlin Clark has been the recipient of significant hostility. For example, Chicago Sky player Chennedy Carter recently dealt an aggressive foul toward Clark that was eventually upgraded to a flagrant foul.
The American Tribune reported on comments from famous comedian Bill Maher, who called out Clark’s teammates for not being more supportive and defending her after the foul. Ultimately, Maher chalked it up to women being “catty.”
“See if this was men, they’d defend each other on their same team,” Maher said. “I mean, men will fight from two teams, but when somebody checks you on who’s on your team, you defend that guy. I’m just saying men have their bad parts. We’re toxic. We’re dogs. Only women would do this.” Maher continued, “Women are catty. Even the ones on your own team.”
Moreover, Maher quoted former NBA star Matt Barnes, who also weighed in on the matter, blasting Clark’s Indiana Fever teammates for not stepping in to protect their teammate. He said, “My issue and my question is, where the f— are her teammates at?… I’ve seen a couple of girls smirk when she’s got knocked down, half-ass to pick her up… “You guys are supposed to be a family… It’s your guys’ f—ing job to have her back, and to have each others’ backs.” See footage of the foul below:
Aside from her rough treatment on the court, external commentators have made remarks about Clark’s race and sexuality, where former ESPN personality Jemele Hill suggested that it was largely the reason for her popularity.
Hill said, “We would all be very naive if we didn’t say race and her sexuality played a role in her popularity.” She continued, “While so many people are happy for Caitlin’s success — including the players; this has had such an enormous impact on the game — there is a part of it that is a little problematic because of what it says about the worth and the marketability of the players who are already there.”
Hill went on, “It’s not jealousy. It’s just the fact that in our society, Black women are often erased from the picture. While Caitlin Clark’s success should be widely celebrated, there are various points where we have seen dynamic phenoms and how they have been able to popularize the game. It’s just that, for whatever reason, could be race, could be gender, could be a myriad of factors, that same marketing muscle that seems very intentional about making sure that Caitlyn Clark is a superstar was missing for them.”
Featured image credit: MGoBlog, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caitlin_Clark_(2)_(cropped).jpg
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