They should all be fired.
By “everyone,” I mean everyone involved in the unfolding of Caitlin Clark’s WNBA career.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver; WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert; Indiana Fever Head Coach Christy Sides; Fever General Manager Lin Dunn; Assistant General Manager Hilary Spears; Director of Public Relations Ryan Stevens; and team water man Bobby Boucher Jr.
Everybody, light a fire.
They are a group of amateurs who are not prepared to take advantage of and treasure the greatest gift that has been bestowed upon women’s basketball and the female sports community. They are the architects of the Fyre Festival of Basketball, a summer basketball event created to showcase Caitlin Clark’s mastery of the game. As well as Billy McFarland and Ja Rule’s music events, this Fire Festival It’s on fire.
The people who organize it are con artists. Through their collective incompetence, Clarke’s enemies have undermined her confidence, robbed her of her joy, and distracted her from the task of lifting a moribund league into profitability and relevance.
The level of hostility directed at Clarke and the constant conversations surrounding her character is problematic. She’s a young woman. She’s going to break down. She’s already breaking down.
The way I see it, Thursday was a breaking point for Caitlin Clark, who realized she couldn’t escape the quagmire of race, sexual identity and social justice that the WNBA and corporate media have been hurling at the league’s players. On Thursday afternoon, before the Fever played the Atlanta Dream, reporters asked Clark a series of questions about people allegedly “using her name for racist and misogynistic purposes.”
Clark finally buckled to his knees.
“I think everyone in this world deserves the same respect,” she said. “The women in our league deserve the same respect, so no one should use my name to push their ideas on me. It’s unfortunate. It’s unacceptable. … This is a league that I grew up looking up to and wanting to be a part of. Some of the women in this league were some of my biggest idols and role models growing up and they inspired me to want to achieve this moment to be able to play here every night.”
This answer seems harmless. But it’s not. Clark is being targeted in the same way that made Tim Tebow’s NFL career unsustainable: Clark’s fans are being viewed as problematic and a distraction from creating a winning atmosphere.
Clearly, Clark is a better talent for women’s professional basketball than Tebow was as an NFL quarterback. But men have thicker nerves than women. The level of hostility directed at Clark and the constant debate over her character is more of a problem. She is a woman, and a young woman at that. She will break down. She is already breaking down.
In Thursday night’s win over the Dream, she scored just seven points and lost the ball seven times. Over her past four games, she has made just 15 of her last 44 shots and is averaging 12 points in that same span.
Why do I blame Silver, Engelbert, Said, Dunn and all the others for Clark’s decline? They did nothing to protect this potential superstar.
Let’s take Thursday as an example.
Why is Caitlin Clark speaking to the media before the game? Why?
This is insanity, and given the toxic and divisive conversation surrounding Clarke by corporations and social media, he should not be subjected to clickbait trolls disguised as journalists before the match.
Clark is now the biggest star in sports. She should be treated the same way an NFL team treats a franchise quarterback. Do you think Patrick Mahomes will answer pregame questions from the so-called media? Mahomes rarely gives interviews in the locker room. He speaks at a podium, with a PR staff standing by and ready to shut up any stupid remarks. During practice week, Mahomes is exposed to the media only once in a tightly controlled environment.
There is no way Clarke will have a media circus around the courthouse. It’s stupid. She’s 22, it’s clickbait, and the people calling themselves journalists are agenda-driven activists.
James Boyd, the reporter who asked Clark about the “racist and misogynistic” use of her name, graduated from the university in 2018. He’s been promoted from one position to the next in the name of diversity, equity and inclusion. He works at The Athletic, a position he took after covering the Pacers for nine months for the Indianapolis Star. He took the Pacers job after covering the University of Illinois for six months for the 9,000-circulation Herald and Review.
Boyd’s evidence that Clark’s name was being used to “provide racist and misogynistic slurs” came from a tweet from a Connecticut Suns player who was upset that Clark had told The Athletic’s Jim Trotter hours earlier that he had no control over how his name was used in the culture wars.
“It’s not something I can control so I don’t really think about it or spend a lot of time on that stuff,” Clark said. “Honestly, I don’t really look at that stuff. … People can talk about what they want to talk about, create conversations whatever they want … I’m just here to play basketball.”
When the response was posted on X, it drew the ire of The Sun reporter Dijonai Carrington, who posted her complaint without naming Clark.
“Dog, why? [sic] “It’s crazy to be upset that their names are being used to justify racism, bigotry, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia and the intersectionality of it all. We all see that shit. We all have a platform. We all have a voice and they all carry weight. Silence is a luxury.”
Are you keeping up?
Trotter, a veteran NFL reporter who is suing the NFL for racism, asked Clark a question about the culture war. Clark responded. Her response was posted to X. Carrington subtweeted the response to attack Clark. Boyd used Carrington’s tweet to justify telling Clark that her name was being used to degrade her and be misogynistic.
Trotter, Carrington and Boyd are all black and very obsessed with race. Clark is white and very obsessed with basketball. Clark’s goal is basketball. Trotter, Carrington and Boyd share a race-centric goal. Other so-called journalists quickly produced articles in which Clark accused racists of using his name for their goals. ESPN praised it. Caitlin Clark was probably looking for an aspirin to soothe a legitimate headache.
She is being taken advantage of and no one is protecting her.
Everyone involved needs to be fired.
Clark should quit the WNBA. The league is trying to destroy all of her happiness. It’s not worth it.
