Girls' Basketball
Saturday, June 1, 2024
WNBA's Clark should be revered
WNBA's Clark should be revered
For about six months during the college basketball season, we heard more about Iowa's Caitlin Clark than we did any other basketball player, man or woman, college or pro.
Clark was a hot-shot senior for Iowa who led the Hawkeyes to the Final Four. She was a threat to score when she crossed the halfcourt line. As a result, she started pouring in the points and her efforts created nightly highlight reels across the fruited plain.
When her college career ended, sans a national title, she was drafted by the WNBA's Indiana Fever as the top overall pick and earned a $320K paycheck. Following that deal, Nike dropped $28 million into her bank account. Wilson Sporting Goods followed suit with a bountiful deal that hasn't been disclosed. Clark is grinding cheddar, to be sure. She is the best thing to happen to the miserable league that was the WNBA.
Even though she hasn't won yet, as of this visit, people are buying tickets and tuning to her telecasts in record numbers. This is a shot in the arm that the WNBA needed. Honestly, I'm not sure how the WNBA lasted as long as it has, running at a loss. This was a league created by the NBA to give women a chance to play professional hoop in the U.S. If it weren't for the NBA's funding, the WNBA would have folded long ago.
So, Clark has exhumed this once-uninteresting league and made it marketable. Women's basketball players and sports journaliists should be applauding. At long last, the WNBA has a product people want to see.
You'd think Clark's presence and efforts would be adulated by those who champion women's sports. People are actually watching the WNBA now and Clark is getting Jordan-like endorsements. I figured media who follow the WNBA, and the players who have worked hard to make a living, would be embracing Clark as the savior of the league.
That's not the case.
Critics and players in the league are giving Clark a hard time. Some are lamenting that many great college players are battling in the WNBA with very little hoopla, and this upstart girl from the midwest cornfields has suddenly become the biggest thing in the league.
"Unfair," they say.
Huh? Did I miss something?
Jamele Hill, a "journalist" who tends to see things through a radical prism with not much room for periphery, has been a detractor. She claims that all of this fervor over Clark is because she's straight and white. Not surprising, coming from this hack.
Never mind that she's good, too. This, according to Hill, is more about race and orientation. It seems there's a rumble among players in the league, too. What a crock. What does her melatonin level and the fact that she likes guys have to do with the fact that she's a great player?
Clark worked her keester off to become a better shooter and a better all-around player. She has a good basketball IQ and distributes the ball fairly well. I used to think she had lead in her shoes, but she's demonstrated a good, quick first step and explosiveness to get to the open spaces on the court.
What's more, she's become an overnight sensation that may buoy the WNBA financially, at least in the short term. Look, I'm not just a huge Clark fan,but I do recognize that she's great player, one who may just resurrect this floundering league. She has challenges ahead and some fear that she's holding the weight of the whole WNBA on her shoulders.
Once she learns the game at the pro level, she's going to get better and better. And I think so-called feminists like Hill, and her like-minded acolytes in the WNBA, will owe her a debt of gratitude.
Jim Steele is a correspondent for Magic Valley Publishing. Check him on X @steelesports. His email is pressbox1@gmail.com.
For about six months during the college basketball season, we heard more about Iowa's Caitlin Clark than we did any other basketball player, man or woman, college or pro.
Clark was a hot-shot senior for Iowa who led the Hawkeyes to the Final Four. She was a threat to score when she crossed the halfcourt line. As a result, she started pouring in the points and her efforts created nightly highlight reels across the fruited plain.
When her college career ended, sans a national title, she was drafted by the WNBA's Indiana Fever as the top overall pick and earned a $320K paycheck. Following that deal, Nike dropped $28 million into her bank account. Wilson Sporting Goods followed suit with a bountiful deal that hasn't been disclosed. Clark is grinding cheddar, to be sure. She is the best thing to happen to the miserable league that was the WNBA.
Even though she hasn't won yet, as of this visit, people are buying tickets and tuning to her telecasts in record numbers. This is a shot in the arm that the WNBA needed. Honestly, I'm not sure how the WNBA lasted as long as it has, running at a loss. This was a league created by the NBA to give women a chance to play professional hoop in the U.S. If it weren't for the NBA's funding, the WNBA would have folded long ago.
So, Clark has exhumed this once-uninteresting league and made it marketable. Women's basketball players and sports journaliists should be applauding. At long last, the WNBA has a product people want to see.
You'd think Clark's presence and efforts would be adulated by those who champion women's sports. People are actually watching the WNBA now and Clark is getting Jordan-like endorsements. I figured media who follow the WNBA, and the players who have worked hard to make a living, would be embracing Clark as the savior of the league.
That's not the case.
Critics and players in the league are giving Clark a hard time. Some are lamenting that many great college players are battling in the WNBA with very little hoopla, and this upstart girl from the midwest cornfields has suddenly become the biggest thing in the league.
"Unfair," they say.
Huh? Did I miss something?
Jamele Hill, a "journalist" who tends to see things through a radical prism with not much room for periphery, has been a detractor. She claims that all of this fervor over Clark is because she's straight and white. Not surprising, coming from this hack.
Never mind that she's good, too. This, according to Hill, is more about race and orientation. It seems there's a rumble among players in the league, too. What a crock. What does her melatonin level and the fact that she likes guys have to do with the fact that she's a great player?
Clark worked her keester off to become a better shooter and a better all-around player. She has a good basketball IQ and distributes the ball fairly well. I used to think she had lead in her shoes, but she's demonstrated a good, quick first step and explosiveness to get to the open spaces on the court.
What's more, she's become an overnight sensation that may buoy the WNBA financially, at least in the short term. Look, I'm not just a huge Clark fan,but I do recognize that she's great player, one who may just resurrect this floundering league. She has challenges ahead and some fear that she's holding the weight of the whole WNBA on her shoulders.
Once she learns the game at the pro level, she's going to get better and better. And I think so-called feminists like Hill, and her like-minded acolytes in the WNBA, will owe her a debt of gratitude.
Jim Steele is a correspondent for Magic Valley Publishing. Check him on X @steelesports. His email is pressbox1@gmail.com.
