The WNBA: Thread II
- Thread starter Phil Plantier
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Racism was just one factor I listed. It is highly unlikely Clarke is ever as good as Taurasi, so she probably has some understandable resentment. A comparison to Rick Barry is apt. Ricky Barry was bad. That guy was the best player in the world at one time. The first year they had the 3pt line he went 7-10 one game, and then 8-12. 8 threes was the record for ten years. But when he was making that record the press was already calling Bird the best forward ever. So him resenting Bird is understandable.
Also like JJ (Larry Bird, Cousy, other retired white guys suck, am i right Bro) Taurasi would not want to be open to any accusations of supporting the great white hope.
I think the part where that analogy breaks down is that it's not like the top NBA players had any trouble getting lots of press before Wembanyama joined the league. So it's missing the 'there were lots of great players playing in front of 4k fans a game last year, why is this newbie getting all the publicity' part of the attitude
Tiger is probably the better comp, with the amount that he drove the increase in PGA press / $$... but even ignoring the gender differences, I do think it being a solo sport changes the dynamic quite a bit, as there just isn't the opportunity for a 'unintentional' hard foul in golf - if someone whacked Tiger's knee with a 7 iron it would be pretty obvious
I do wonder if some of the Clark-related dynamic, including the apparent lack of support from her own teammates (I too found it striking that no Fever players rallied to her defense after that blatant cheap shot), is exacerbated by the fact that everything has been so compressed. She went almost straight from NCAA phenom to WNBA rookie, with just a couple months between the end of the tourney and suiting up for Indiana. Her college run is still very fresh in everyone's minds. Plus there wasn't much of a chance for her to get to know her new teammates and ease into her new role, and to players on rival teams it might feel like she's still a hyped kid who's been foisted on them. If the temporal gap between the college and pro calendars were what it is in the NBA, there may have been more of a sense of separation between college CC and WNBA CC.
It wasn’t even two months, the WNBA season is over two weeks in already. And if CC gets hurt on a cheap shot, watch the ratings drop by a measurable amount. Yes, lots of folks have discovered the womens’ game and will continue to watch it, but quite a few are watching for her and if she isn’t playing won’t watch. Or will turn off because they are turned off by the incident.
I’ll have to defer to you guys but I ask, is CC an asshole? Does she look down on black players? Because if not then this looks like a bunch of bitches bullying and picking on the 7th grader in the middle school bathroom.
If CC does not act like a Prima Dona, and I have no way of knowing for certain but I sure haven’t seen it, then “not a good look” is an understatement. When your own teammates leave you laying on the floor after a cheap shot, you better be the biggest asshole in the history of basketball.
It’s complicated as neither the league or team are helping. If the league doesn’t control the situation then it will just continue until Clark is injured. It certainly doesn’t help that her team doesn’t rally to her defense and they probably need a Maurice Lucas type to help out. Reese was hit with a more dangerous/egregious foul that could have ended her season, and she was “applauded “ for just brushing it off. I’m not sure I fully understand why Clark and Reese are expected to just “take it”. The league (and players) will ultimately suffer if they don’t control the games as interest will wane with the perceived bullying and lack of consequences.
I was also surprised the foul wasn’t elevated but have since read that there was some interaction between Clark & Carter just prior to that point -
Quote from - https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5534226/2024/06/01/caitlin-clark-angel-reese-indiana-fever-foul/
Really feels like a lot of overreaction. It is one poorly officiated highly unsporting play. It is getting lots of attention. There is not going to be a repeat.
The league is not going to abandon its meal ticket. Going zapruter to say her teammates might not like her seems premature.
If anything, the fact that ESPN seems to have a heels and faces narrative it can exploit that people care about seems to reflect a healthy WNBA. It’s shitty, but that’s the world we live in.
The league is not going to abandon its meal ticket. Going zapruter to say her teammates might not like her seems premature.
If anything, the fact that ESPN seems to have a heels and faces narrative it can exploit that people care about seems to reflect a healthy WNBA. It’s shitty, but that’s the world we live in.
Agreed.
Clarks hype-vs- baseline factor is off the charts greater than any athlete in recent memory. She is the biggest sports star in the country right now, maybe the biggest celebrity full stop, but she plays for a terrible team in a league that used to get literally 1/100 of the media attention it’s getting now. To describe the 2023 Indiana Fever as barely perceptible in the national consciousness is being very kind. Now they lead off sportscasts every night and tweets and posts about them dominate social media. It’s getting as much discussion on this board as any other topic. She’s on SNL ffs.
This is player with Beatles-on-Ed-Sullivan white hot level celebrity showing up in the 2024 equivalent of the early 50s NBA, when the Fort Wayne Pistons and Rochester Royals went from town to town in station wagons they drove themselves.
She is cocky but not to a huge degree, trash talks but within the norm for top ballers, and had several black teammates at Iowa (though the team was majority white) without any hints of bias that I'm aware of. Taurasi is a great comp, personality wise and game wise (though she's bigger / taller than Clark, and lacks the Curry range). And DT brought some incremental attention to the W off of her legendary college career, but nothing to the extent that Clark has captured the zeitgeist.
If you want to understand the dynamic between Clark and her teammates, and try to infer how things might be going in the Indiana locker room, I can hardly recommend any better than Wright Thompson's long form article on her career arc, from back in early March. He followed her around the last two years, and the takeaway was: she may be not super popular partly because she's a very demanding teammate, demanding of herself but also of her less talented teammates, and they all had to learn to adjust to that, and to have her grow up and not blow up at them about stuff. So if she's doing likewise at her pro teammates, as a rookie, it might work out in the long run (see e.g. Michael Jordan), but could be a bumpy rookie year.
Not a comment on the quality of the game or the players btw. Just the opposite. From a human standpoint I understand why these great players might resent someone with $MM contracts when they’ve been playing in obscurity but helping to build the league she’s joining. it’s bad business, bad officiating, and just wrong as a matter of tight and wrong, but it’s not contrary to human nature.
Yes I edited but you got me too fast, confused him with Jason Whitlock I think.
If we can set aside L'Affaire Carter for a second, it appears that Breanna Stewart and former UConn teammate Napheesa Collier are launching a new basketball league and competition format, meant to be an offseason thing, with very innovative approach to compensation. Brief podcast on it here:
https://frontofficesports.com/podcast/two-wnba-stars-plan-to-change-womens-basketball/
https://frontofficesports.com/podcast/two-wnba-stars-plan-to-change-womens-basketball/
what does any of that matter? This happens in the NBA all of the time and I don’t see anyone go “motherfucker!” and then truck someone
I wasn’t making any justification, @Auger34…just sharing a bit of info I hadn’t seen when watching the game.
The NBA does not like swearing.
I learned this coaching in CEBL. One of our guys was on the edge of going to the NBA. He was told that if the bench shooters on the Raptors didn't shoot better or any shooter got hurt he was next up. His coaches were surprised to he didn't know becasue they had been all over him to stop dropping f-bombs. Due to mikes and fans near the game collectively filming on their phones virtually every moment, NBA players are strongly encouraged to not curse. Like anything bench guys and role players know they can get away with less. Anyway G-league guys feel they are getting close to the League when they are told to knock off the f-bombs.
https://www.si.com/nba/2022/05/11/nba-fines-swearing-record-nbpa-response-draymond-green-demarcus-cousins
I think the theory behind that is after Clark gets knocked down her teammate ambles over and helps her up.
It wasn't like in a soccer scrum where a teammate runs in and pushes the opponent and tells them to fuck off or whatever.
Honestly I think trying to make anything Chenedy Carter, someone who was basically out of the league because she was an enormous piece of shit who everyone hated to the extent she tried to fight a teammate and was defacto booted from the league into a league-wide thing is kind of silly. Yeah, stars like Taurasi are gonna talk shit, Taurasi talks shit about every single non-Uconn player, and yeah she'll get some extra defensive effort because people know she's got all the eyes on her (kind of like how NBA guys always try to dunk on new stars). But the dirty play is just Carter being trash not indicative of the league.
This all seems like growing pains. Growth always requires pain; leaving the old behind and moving into something new never comes without discomfort and distress, and the proximate cause of the growth, the one or ones who make growth possible, always are the subject of resistance and pain. If there is no resistance, progress is not happening. The WNBA vets have been toiling long and hard for not very much, and here comes the opportunity for the league to become something more. That some would resist only testifies to the possibility that the new is real and making an actual difference. That the agent of the new are resented is only natural. Change is seldom pleasant for anyone, but without change, growth is impossible.
A better day is coming, and in years to come, Caitlyn Clark will be celebrated, even by the folks who are now giving her grief.
A better day is coming, and in years to come, Caitlyn Clark will be celebrated, even by the folks who are now giving her grief.
jaylen brown lost that memo the last several press conferences. To our great enjoyment
Eh, ESPN.com is "Clark held to 3 points as Liberty clobber Fever"
Thankfully, the Fever can finally breathe. After playing their first 11 games in 20 days, including a pair of back to backs, they now get 5 days off, and then get 2 days off between each of their games from June 7 through June 19. That should give them some time to rest, and practice. They have no remaining back to backs all season. Only 14 of their final 29 games only come with a single rest day.
Except for after the clip all over the media she adds “because of all of us” as the reason people watching.
Here are the quotes....
"It all started from the (2023) national championship game and I've been dealing with this for two years now. Understanding like negative things have probably been said about me, but honestly I'll take that because look where women's basketball is," Reese said Monday. "People are talking about women's basketball, who you'd never think would be talking about women's basketball. People are pulling up to games, we've got celebrities coming to games and sold-out arenas because of one single game.
"Just looking at that, I'll take that role. I'll take the bad guy role and I'll continue to take that on and be that for my teammates. ... I'll look back in 20 years and be like, 'The reason why we're watching women's basketball is not just because of one person. It's because of me, too.' I want y'all to realize that."
"Like it's not just because of one person. A lot of us have done so much for this game...there are so many great players in this league that have deserved this for a really, really long time, and luckily, it's coming now."
To me, that looks like a nice attempted save at the end
"It all started from the (2023) national championship game and I've been dealing with this for two years now. Understanding like negative things have probably been said about me, but honestly I'll take that because look where women's basketball is," Reese said Monday. "People are talking about women's basketball, who you'd never think would be talking about women's basketball. People are pulling up to games, we've got celebrities coming to games and sold-out arenas because of one single game.
"Just looking at that, I'll take that role. I'll take the bad guy role and I'll continue to take that on and be that for my teammates. ... I'll look back in 20 years and be like, 'The reason why we're watching women's basketball is not just because of one person. It's because of me, too.' I want y'all to realize that."
"Like it's not just because of one person. A lot of us have done so much for this game...there are so many great players in this league that have deserved this for a really, really long time, and luckily, it's coming now."
To me, that looks like a nice attempted save at the end
She is absolutely spot-on 100% correct.
I am a big fan of both Clark and Reese.
She's definitely not wrong. She's gotten all kinds of abuse these last few years...and not just from internet comments...from reporters with platforms. Look back at how the LSU basketball team was described vs. the Iowa team...totally racist crap! And for sure, there are more eyes on the league thanks to Clark, but also thanks to Reese (and others). Reese has more than 3.3 million instagram followers compared to Clark's 2.4m. Reese has just as strong a following but no one's writing about it. The networks chose to air the Fever opening game, but not that of the Sky (which I wanted to see)...headlines are all about Clark. I have zero problems with Reese pointing out that she's a draw too...yet she's also a team player and seems to be super excited at the attention that the WNBA is getting.
I love Angel Reese...she's a ton of fun!
I think part of the issue is the style of play between Clark and Reese. These days everyone wants to be Steph and bomb 3's from the logo or hesitate to get space and step back behind the arc and hit a 3 in a defender's face. Clark can do that. Despite her obvious skills, Reese plays more of a down-low and mid-range game. That's not going to be the same draw for eyeballs as Clark's game. So while Reese is supremely talented and will help grow the game based on that talent, she's not going to have the same impact as Caitlin Clark based on style and that probably bothers her.
Reese has a massive social media following and was one of the top NIL earners in women's sports. But she is not in any way the main reason why so many people are watching the WNBA.
And in response to @NickEsasky - Reese has NO mid-range game at all. She absolutely sucks at shooting anything outside 3 feet. She's a good defender, has an unbelievable motor, is tall and strong, and is a phenomenal rebounder. All great attributes that should allow her to have a highly successful pro (and probably Olympic) career. But one thing she cannot do at all is shoot from any distance besides point blank. (note: her FT shooting isn't terrible though, which is weird because she can't shoot from there during games at all)
That's completely fair and I appreciate the correction. Admittedly I haven't seen more than a couple of LSU games (NC and FF). I knew she was a post player but I didn't want to claim she was only a post player offensively if I didn't know for sure.
Playing pickup ball at the UConn rec is brutal, and I assume it's the same everywhere. Because it's 2s and 1s, rather than 3s and 2s, the math "works" for guys to chuck from three, but that's essentially all it is now - five out and everyone making one-on-one moves (or passing around the perimeter) to a guy who will hoist from 30 feet, or a guy taking a Harden/Tatum three (or four) step step-back three.
The problem, of course, is that while elite NBA (and now WNBA) players can make these shots, the guys at the rec - many of whom played HS ball - cannot, at least nothing resembling a decent percentage. It's just brick after freaking brick with absolutely none of these guys having *any* conscience whatsoever. I used to be embarrassed when I'd miss one of my little short mid-range jumpers, feeling like I'm letting the team down for missing it, but holy cow nobody in the gym has any remorse whatsoever with making ten dribble moves, taking three steps, chucking up a step-back three from 26 feet and airballing it.
So yeah, the distance shooting - everyone wants to do that. Nobody wants to do the Angel Reese dirty work inside anymore.
Angel Reese is a draw. She got invited to the Met Gala. She's bringing eyes to the product.
However, there are a few things that I think deserved to be mentioned.
She's not in the same strata as Clark as a player. There are posts in here talking about how top 4 picks get cut all of the time...Reese was the 8th pick in the draft (and that's with teams knowing that she was a draw).
To @BaseballJones point I think there’s some jealousy on her part that Clark is getting all of these flowers because of her basketball skill and Reese really isn’t (and tbh she shouldn’t be)
However, there are a few things that I think deserved to be mentioned.
She's not in the same strata as Clark as a player. There are posts in here talking about how top 4 picks get cut all of the time...Reese was the 8th pick in the draft (and that's with teams knowing that she was a draw).
To @BaseballJones point I think there’s some jealousy on her part that Clark is getting all of these flowers because of her basketball skill and Reese really isn’t (and tbh she shouldn’t be)
I thought he was 6th because everyone knew he wasn't playing immediately - they basically drafted him a year early (I think? It was a long time ago).
And because he had the option to not sign and re-enter the draft the next year if he didn't like the offer. Completely irrelevant to Reese, but I'm pretty sure Ale knows that. He would have gone #1 if the Pacers could have got him to agree to a deal before the draft.
How many casual fans (ie., those who don’t follow womens hoops) know who Angel Reese is if it weren’t for her beef with Clark in the 2023 tourney?
I think she is a draw…because Clark made her one. Every superhero needs a villain and she appears to be it for Clark. Honestly, she should embrace that role. It will make her a lot of money.
I’ve seen her play a few times now and she is a solid talent but nothing remarkable.
This right here. I am the prototypical casual fan of WNBA, NHL, PGA and now sadly MLB in that I don’t watch unless there is a catalyst to capture my attention. Clark is a catalyst to the casual fan at least for the moment….Angel Reese was never going to be a catalyst that attracts the casual fan. Clark is Bird/Magic in 1979….Reese is Darryl Dawkins.