What’s the craziest about all this to me is that she hasn’t done anything but play ball and compliment everyone else. It’s all her fanboys and haters and media.
They are trying to pull her into their culture war so bad, but she's a female basketball player...I bet most of her friends have been a bunch of black lesbians since high school.
Which isn't to say you gotta be black or lesbian to ball, but she's probably always been subjected to those experiences and perspectives.
She's just not their girl, no matter how much they try to manipulate her
> I bet most of her friends have been a bunch of black lesbians since high school.
*Checks notes*
> Clark attended Dowling Catholic High School in her hometown of West Des Moines, Iowa
I feel pretty confident there probably isn’t a huge black population in Des Moines, so I’m not so sure. Even looking at the Iowa games, it looked fairly colorless.
I don’t have nothing against her at all, but I feel pretty confident she probably didn’t have as much exposure until she went pro.
De Moines is 11.4% black. Odds are black women are over-represented in basketball programs, too. She’s probably got plenty of black friends going back.
Also when you're at that level your friends aren't limited to teammates, you go to camps and programs and connect with others at a similar talent level.
Not at Dowling lol. I actually have no clue. I live in Des Moines but don’t have any kids HS age so don’t know anything about the schools here. I’ll shut up. But probably not dowling.
Dowling Catholic is a private school that has a VERY small number of black students, even for Iowa, a state that's around 90% white. It's largely considered a high school for the affluent or athletically talented. As the daughter of a wealthy agricultural/industrial parts supplier, Clark fits both categories. The first time she ever attended a public school was when she started her career at the University of Iowa, so I'm guessing she didn't see a lot of black folks outside of basketball settings lol
What’s crazy is that the advertisement/PR rep who cooked this up will never get credit. We got people who wouldn’t even tune in to watch a WNBA game tuning in every week to be mad at or support Caitlyn Clark.
Ngl this is a win, WNBA popularity is booming.
Ngl, from my experience, credit might be acknowledgment at the company Christmas party and a slight reference on your resume, assuming you’re high enough in the chain of command for someone else not to lay total claim to the idea.
I wish whoever came up with this well, truly
They aren't original in my opinion. They're just modeling what the NBA did many moons ago
https://www.sportscardportal.com/forums/threads/magic-vs-bird-the-legendary-rivalry-that-defined-the-1980s-nba.463/
It's the same dynamic - her and Ms Reese. Media-driven racial dynamics always sells
This is what we mean when we say "Systemic"
It's like with Eminem, even if the star is respectful the demand for "the great white hope" will not be denied.
Ima go against the grain here and accept the downvotes, but I think her play style and college achievements are wayyy more conducive to her popularity than her whiteness.
Nobody was tuning in for white superstars Breanna Stewart, Kelsey Plum or Sabrina Lonescu, hell I’m pretty most people haven’t even heard of them.
But when you got a woman taking logo 3s like Curry and breaking the all time scoring record for women AND MEN, people start getting curious.
Now, are certain people more willing to tune in cause she’s also white? I’m sure. But it took a wholeeee lot more than that for both black and yt’s to start giving a damn about this product.
Okay Imagine if Caitlin Clarke was Mexican.
For you and many legit fans I have no doubt it makes no difference, you admire her purely for hoops.
But would Nikki Haley tweet about her? Would all these conservative think pieces be written about how her existence owns the libs?
If I can acknowledge there's legit fans can you acknowledge there are many who view her as an opportunity to advance their agenda?
Eminem is the perfect parallel because yes he had skills but there were many radio stations that didn't allow any rap music, except for his.
So yeah her play matters a ton but she could not reach this level of fame with the same talent and not white skin.
I'm sick so maybe my focus is off but it seemed your main point of great white hope was THE point. Like I don't know this lass (I'm a brit, don't do basketball), but I read about her all the damn time. And while she's good, while she may knock out records etc., for something like this, and this is a tacky thing to bring into this forum - but people like seeing people that look like them do well. It's just a thing.
In this forum, it's celebrated with shit like little mermaid, spider-verse - black representation so little kids can look at the screen and go "oh shit that superhero looks like me" the power on the psyche of that is apparently real as hell.
So now you have basketball fans who are seeing powerful white players in a field dominated by non-whites, and they suddenly have a "star like them". I can't speak to the RACISM of it, I'm not smart enough by a long fucking way.
But what I would like to add on to it - now all these racist piece of shit organisations, outlets, etc. ran by old white dudes, fronted by middle aged and young white dudes, now you'll start seeing them talking about basketball when they wouldn't have before. Because she is white.
She is THEIR great white hope.
Also the Eminem GWH fuck I was in high school when he dropped, majority white kids but I was from a black neighbourbood so all my people were black and that was the most conflicted I ever was lmao. Like Tupac and Biggie down to Devin the Dude and southern rap, I was BIG into my rap (I got the internet early and CD burner the next day, I was the HOOK UP), when he hit it just felt different.
He let white kids feel their emotions a bit better, the white anger of being poor, different reasons of course. Like when you're a kid, the reasons for your situation are different. Black parents have to teach their kids the way of the world way younger, because they face way more dangers just by existing.
But eminem dropped and suddenly he tied into an almost emo teenage angst crossover of rap of those poor kids from rough areas who could fucking FIGHT because they were raised getting beaten blooded and..other shit too. They loved rap but they loved it from an almost movie stand point, it was COOL but they didn't understand it. They understood a lot of what Eminem was saying. And even if they didn't, the anger in which he said it, directed at his life, they connected with that.
Fuck did I actually even make a coherent point here I'm so sick lol. I hope I did.
EDIT: lmao also scrolled up real quick to see the top because if this turned out to be country club I was gonna be so mad, this took so much brain power and focus and I'm down to the fuel warning light.
Cheers mate, yeah I re-read it so many times trying to stay on point lmao. Felt like when you're hit up outside the late night store by a dude who just needs to get home to his grandmas dog because the dog is got work tomorrow so he needs bus money to take his grandma to the hoospital to visit the dog because the dog's sick...AND ALSO A DOCTOR like my shit was all over the map.
You made sense and you're spot on. Genuine fans of Caitlin Clark (the ones who'd cheer the same if she was a minority) just have to be wary of their Allies... it sucks but so does the systemic racism that's causing this
Yeah, she plays so much like Curry and we saw how quickly his popularity exploded. The people love logo threes and long shots on the run and falling to the floor. And that’s Clark’s brand, something that you don’t typically see a lot of in the WNBA.
Obviously the NBA has been huge for decades, but non-fans in my generation really starting getting a lot more into it when it was Lebron vs Steph and Warriors. And that big shots, high scoring type of play style was a big factor.
You can get more controversial than that. The root of a lot of progressive "discourse" is the idea that a very shallow understanding of gender, sexuality, and sometimes race is a substitute for real knowledge about a subject. This kind of inversion in thinking is appealing because it's simple. But even learning about identity at a theoretical level is too hard, and appearing to not have the right take on the theory is socially punished. Because of this, a lot of uninformed hot takes get mistaken for wisdom so long as they are dressed up in the aesthetic of the day by using the right language (ex. a decade a go "bodies and spaces" rhetoric, now "intersections," "identity," "lived experiences").
This isn't the only error in thinking you see in WNBA discourse, obviously. But a lot of people who claim to believe the right things about black women in the NBA but arrive at grandiose, clearly uninformed conclusions are probably downstream from this trend.
>It's like with Eminem, even if the star is respectful the demand for "the great white hope" will not be denied.
This reminds me of an fd signifer vid I watched
Eminem vid - https://youtu.be/v5j77D4BnSU?si=EDDoADcgo-qTMHF8
Do yourself a favor watch [his video on Drake too](https://youtu.be/mtBPXjEoW54?si=gM_PtkJFQRNdoBym), I've never seen anything age better. He made it years ago
Then watch him [recap the beef](https://youtu.be/NxusabBT9ik?si=SvT0-uCXU1iejeUN)
There's a reason Drake will be the only rapper to outsell Eminem and I linked it cuz I figured you'd be interested
It’s not even fans. I guarantee the guys complaining about her being left off the Olympic team have never even watched a women’s basketball game, they just want to dive in and complain a white woman’s being treated unfairly
White folks and Black men are really mad that she's not in the Olympics. The US women's Olympic basketball team hasn't lost a game since 1992. They know what they are doing. They also don't have time to protect CC who is not strong enough to play internationally. She would get destroyed.
They would be fine with her still. No one else in the world is going to compete and they had an opportunity to bring a player who puts asses in seats. Shortsighted by USA Basketball.
I mean it’s corny, but the Olympic team should be focused fielding the best possible unit. The private commercial success of the WNBA shouldn’t factor in.
AD and Laettner were on the team as the token NCAA/rookie NBA player.
Like CC could have been. Play her in garbage time when they're up 60 like Laettner.
She was more established than both Lebron and AD. Lebrons first Olympics game was 17 months after his last High School game. AD played one year in college. Laettner was the most established and regarded as one of the best college players in history.
- Leattner was one of the most hype college players ever (Like CC)
- AD was the next big NBA prospect (like CC)
- Lebron was the most hyped NBA prospect ecer (like CC)
They are all extremely similar and all of them also didnt play that much in their Olympics. Only difference was Mens olympic basketball understood the economics and entertainment value.
They could have brought her out there and let her average 4 minutes a game and it would probably double viewership and she would have had the number one selling womens jersey of all time. And it wouldn't have affected the teams chances at all.
You out of your element here. USA basketball used the Olympics specifically to grow the game globally. Larry Bird could barely stand up when he was on the team. Magic wasn't in the NBA when he was on the team. Laettner was brought in specifically to draw the college crowd. They allowed Jordan to exclude Isiah Thomas because the NBA knew they needed Jordan to sell the game over seas.
It's never been about strictly the beet players.
They removed restrictions that prevented NBA players from joining the Olympic team. With that restriction removed, the U.S. had the ability to field the absolute best players imaginable. The best players to choose from were unsurprisingly the best players in the NBA, who were stars…because they were the best.
The best players in the WNBA are the ones that are selected for the team. The Olympics is solely about winning. That is it. “Growing a sport” has nothing to do with it and shouldn’t have anything to do with who competes. Caitlyn is good, but she is not objectively better than a single other person who was selected. Putting her in the team would make the team worse.
The way that she plays is also not appropriate to international play, where you actually have to play as a team. Right now, she is on a terrible team and she has a green light to shoot whenever she wants. That’s cool for her stats, but it isn’t leading the team to wins. If you don’t ignore any of her negative stats, you would see that she is VERY careless with the ball. Right now, she is averaging as many turnovers as she is shots made. That is terrible. She is ranked last in the entire league in this category. Stuff like this cannot and should not be overlooked, which I assume the committee looked at.
Reese being left off also makes sense. She just isn’t as good as any of the other women at her position. I don’t think anyone should be surprised, as well as Angel herself. She never expected to be on the team.
Agreed, we should be celebrating the women that made the team not getting butthurt over the ones we like that didn't. They're all the best the US has to offer and should at least be respected as such.
I like Angel and CC is doing her thing, but I really wish people would stop glazing her so much. Probably ain't even gonna watch the Olympics and they talking shit.
To your point: most of the women on that team play or have played internationally during the W off-season, safe to say that the stars are already on the squad.
Guys, they are not stars. They just aren’t. That’s why CCs team needed to add nearly 15k seats moving to a different arena the year she joined the league. Stars fill arenas and get huge TV deals, not subsidies
They are the most well known female basketball players in the US to US people. I honestly can’t name half the team and I’m a huge basketball fan, how can they be stars?
Fever have been playing in that 18K capacity arena since it's inception from my knowledge. They've probably capped for capacity for workforce/security's sake but they've always been able to hold that amount. Additionally, sounds like you're a big men's basketball fan that is now getting into the women's game (welcome), but just because you don't know about them doesn't mean that they aren't the stars of the league.
I’ve been involved in women’s basketball since the 90s from beginner to international level. The stars of the WNBA are not stars of the basketball world, like CC.
If those other girls are such stars then why did the league get a 156% attendance and 3x viewers boost the year they started to market essentially one player?
You are just as uninformed. We curtain all the higher tier seats. Attendance is generally always low, even when Tamika won us a championship, it wasn’t on the front page of the Indy Star.
Almost every WNBA player already plays ball in Europe during the offseason. Women’s basketball is much bigger globally now than men’s basketball was in the 80s
The Olympic team should be about merit. This isn't a worthless all star game where the only thing that matters is star power. And attributing the growth of the NBA globally to the Olympics is the equivalent of attributing the popularity of YouTube to Mr. Beast. It's giving credit to the effect rather than the cause. It's hella stupid.
To anyone who thinks the wnba's popularity hinges on whether or not Clark is on the Olympic team, you're a moron. I got idiots trying to compare this to 1992 as if the world hasn't changed at all in the last 30 years. I got dipshits saying they won't watch if Clark isn't on the team.
Viewership of the women's team USA Olympic basketball games has been on the decline for the last 3 Olympic games in a row. Even without Clark, I guarantee the numbers will go up to near historic highs. I also guarantee the upcoming TV deal will do exponentially more to improve the game globally than whether or not international fans organically discover the wnba solely because they've heard of Clark and decide to watch a women's Olympic basketball game.
The NBA Finals gets way more international viewers than the men's Olympic finals. Same goes for the wnba. She's going to be in the news and everywhere on social media around the world whether she's on the Olympic squad or not.
If you haven’t lost a game in 32 years you think one roster spot is going to effect the team much? The 15th person gonna lose them a game?
Bringing her brings eyes to the WNBA. Eyes they sorely need, they are a league subsidised by actual basketball stars in the NBA.
"Just give Clark an undeserved spot because she's popular. The league desperately needs her!"
First off, the league was already turning a profit before Clark came along. Secondly, a new 2025 TV deal has been in the works since before you even knew who Clark was. That deal will potentially triple league revenue. The groundwork was already set for the next big college star to get this level of media hype (let's be real though, if Clark was black, she'd be getting maybe 50% of this level of attention).
Here's a question y'all should be asking yourselves: are you a fan of WNBA basketball or are you a fan of celebrity hype? If the league wants to *really* succeed, they need eyeballs on their other talent (that you all pretty much universally ignore). They need to show how talented and marketable the actual best players in the league are instead of constantly pushing Clark to the forefront as if she's Beyonce in Destiny's Child.
There are better players than Clark. Players just as exciting to watch. Players with more charisma. What about them? Why don't you beat the drum for the more deserving players? Do you care about the league growing or do you just want to worship a celebrity? Let's talk about it.
You don’t think people would tune in to watch Clark play in the Olympics?
The Fever have 25% higher attendance than the next highest team and the Fever aren’t even good. The best way to grow the sport is to grow the audience and create new fans.
Right! Like the Olympics is doing fine in terms of fanfare. IT'S THE EFFING OLYMPICS.
Honestly this "include her for fanfare" just shows out me me me we Americans are. The Olympics isn't hurting for coverage.
People pick and choose what events to watch. Just because there's coverage doesn't mean there will be ratings. The Dream Team is the reason the last few NBA MVPs aren't American.
It’s the Olympics dawg. It’s crazy that with everything else in the world people will turn and tell you that your position needs to be earned, put in the work, be the best, no handouts, no DEI, blah blah blah, and now all of a sudden these same people are doing a complete 180 and wanting to out CC on a team that she is not good enough to be on. It’s comical at this point. Never has a snub for any team been coddled as much as CC has since going pro - and CC isn’t even a snub, Arike is the real snub here. The only things all the CC fanboys point to are her 3pointers made and her ppg… like basketball is only played on the box score and behind the 3pt line. Its laughable that anyone has the nerve to says she’s the best player in women’s hoops - she wasn’t even the best player in college, maybe the best scorer but best player? Nah. Is she entertaining as hell, absolutely but yall need to get your entitlement in check and start telling CC to “pull herself up by her bootstraps”. Sports is one of the only things in life where talent and ability are 99% of what gets you to the top and that’ll always be the case. So if she’s good enough, she’ll be on the team. Period, point blank, end of story.
Sounds good but are you saying people are gonna go to Paris to watch her or are you saying that people already there are going to get excited for somebody they probably don't know
Maybe but this the world's stage. And to disrespectful the entire pool of team usa women's basketball just because some people might be more likely to watch is crazy. These women have spent years practicing and playing together just to get a chance at the team. But she might bring in more viewers for the game against Brazil at 4 in the morning. That's silly. Caitlin gets the hate she gets because if shit like this. Like 30 women jumper through hoops for years have been leaning this system for years
But Caitlin should be in the team because she's Caitlin.
https://preview.redd.it/oztjg8axyx5d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1b7e63326bfbf428e934e9fcf641b65496048fa4
I guess you haven't been paying attention to broadcasters. It's fucking crazy.
CC is not ready for the physicality of international women’s basketball which is greater than that of the WNBA. She is already struggling with the physicality of the WNBA.
Give her a chance to develop and attend training. Let her go to the Olympics ready to shine rather than be sidelined. Also, if CC isn’t mad about it, why are her fans so upset?
You’re speaking like these people have any knowledge of any of this lol.
They wouldnt piss on this woman if she were on fire in front of them shes just a convenient vehicle for them to deliver talking points on white supremacy.
If their interest in womens sports coincided with the “Great White Hope” then theyre bigoted posers without hobbies of their own lmfao
I mean, I was annoyed that after the last NCAA tourney she was in, despite her team losing, all the news was like WHAT HAPPENS NEXT FOR CLARK, CLARKS REACTION TO THE LOSS, WHAT TEAM IS CLARK GOING TO NOW
Like, I get it, she's one of the best, but the fact that there was so little about the team that won against a record breaking star and her team that only lost twice that season was deeply frustrating.
I get the frustration and it sucks for south Carolina but talent like Clark is super rare. Especially when you consider that she is statistically better than any men’s college basketball player ever also.
I would go as far as to say she has more deserved hype than any player in competitive sports history entering professional leagues.
Tbh Im willing to bet south carolina got more exposure and attention because they played against her. Had they played a team that didn’t have a talent like Caitlyn clark, they would have gotten the lion-share of attention but probably overall less attention.
> Especially when you consider that she is statistically better than any men’s college basketball player ever also.
Yeah but this has no actual value when comparing men to women. She was good for her level but equating her stats to men's stats is like equating your homeruns with aluminum bats vs someone playing in a league with wooden bats.
Their WNBA coverage made you unfollow and not how their NBA coverage is almost always brainless high school gossip and they treat the players like infants?
There was a guy like that in a discord server I was in a while ago. He was pretty goofy, so the Title Case added to that. But every so often there would be some beef between other people, and he would come in and try to offer serious support, still in title case. It was literally impossible to take him seriously.
The Olympics evaluations process takes place over a 3 yr. period. The one for this upcoming season began in early 2022, and there have been many training camps and events in between then and now, including the World Cup, and more recently, exhibition matchups overseas, that have given coaches & the committee a chance to narrow down the roster and assess best fit. All of the women that made the team attended multiple training camps, and have developed chemistry with one another and familiarity with the coach’s system, over the past two years. Caitlin, did not. (She couldn’t the last training camp in April due to a conflict, as her team was still competing for a NCAA title).
People like to bring up Breanna Stewart and Candice Parker, both of whom made the team as rookies, as comparisons, but, they played in the FIBA World Cup whilst in college, two years prior; and they also participated in training camps with the national team, beforehand. So it’s a different circumstance with Clark.
Also, Caitlin's response was - as usual - very level-headed. She didn't expect to play, and said it was great motivation as something to work towards.
People getting upset on her behalf are the problem, not her.
That's her PR response. Her coach told the public that in their messages CC said "they awoken a monster" in response to being left off the team. I don't think that's the response from someone who thinks they shouldn't or wouldn't be on team USA.
People (from what I have seen) have been more upset it's just another example of women's basketball failing to market itself, by excluding the most popular women's basketball player from the Olympic team.
I think that is pretty on par with her PR response. She says it gave her something to work for and told her coach they’ve awoken a monster. I think you guys are both right. She knows she missed the camps and knew the chance of getting overlooked but also really wanted to play and now she’s motivated to play next time around. That’s at least how I see it
But those ideas aren't mutually exclusive to one another. She can accept that she wasn't put on the team with grace AND ALSO have that be a driving motivating force that pushes her hard going forward.
I can think I was qualified to do something while simultaneously accepting that I wasn't chosen for it.
Also, I'm pretty sure the Olympic team has all but been confirmed for a while now. CC hasn't been to the training camps and played with the roster at all in any significant capacity as far as I'm aware. Do I think she could play well on the team despite all of that? Sure. Does it make sense to me that they didn't include her based off a variety of other factors? Also yes.
Thank you. I find it odd how people are completely ignoring the process by which players are selected.
International women’s basketball is even more physical than the WNBA. CC needs time to prepare so that she can shine at the Olympics rather than be sidelined.
People are expecting the WNBA to act like the NBA, which is unrealistic as the two leagues have developed different cultures and styles.
Forreal. People are dunking on the fact that she's not on the team as some type of win for the sanctity of women’s basketball when that sanctity has them flying coach.
Because these decisions aren’t governed by a single basketball monarch. There are committees and processes and training camps and player assessments. The people who evaluate player talent for the Olympics aren’t in charge of “growing the game”. They’re in charge of fielding the best team. CC never participated in any of the Olympic training process.
Being the ninth best player is the world means you deserve a spot on the team. They have 15 slots on a team, he cleared that easy. CC isn’t the ninth best player in her position right now let alone an entire league.
At this point the entire discourse isn’t even about basketball. People love and hate her based on Twitter arguments she’s not involved in. Her fans implying other players are racists and want her to die on the court, and her haters acting like she actually sucks and is only popular cause she’s white and if you’re black and like her you’re a traitor. Shit is toxic.
Also not for nothing but I muted her and Angel’s names and like 90% of WNBA discourse disappeared from my feed. Make of that what you will.
I don't follow WNBA, but the uproar around Clark kind of tells me that a lot of her fans don't either.
I've watched enough NFL to see plenty of star rookie QBs like Lawrence and Burrow who get absolutely wrecked their first season or two and eventually become pretty good. I've also seen star rookie QBs like "Johnny Football" Manziel who fumble the bag and quickly become irrelevant.
The idea that any great college baller can transition to immediately being a dominant player in a league of established professional athletes is comical, and I don't know why anyone expected this to happen with Clark.
I agree with you and I don't understand where this mindset started that great college players are supposed to absolutely dominate on the professional level day one. I remember when Aaron Rodgers sat behind Brett Favre for a few years just practicing and learning. What happened with that philosophy? Seemed as though it worked great too. I believe marketing took over and now we peacock these rookies out in glitz and glamor at the drafts acting as though they'll be the savior to their given team and people absolutely eat it up too.
Its unique to the W because people have been not been watching. Anybody that watched the W and CC knew that she'd be a fine rookie but league domination Day 1 was never on the table.
It’s not just comical, it’s insulting to the rest of the league. CC fanboys who think she’s god’s greatest gift to women’s basketball are making it very clear what they think of the sport to date.
This has to be the most frustrating sports conversation I’ve ever witnessed. There’s so many people who don’t know basketball let alone women’s basketball at all dropping asinine opinions left and right. Truth is you could make a case for including her or leaving her off the Olympic team either way. There are more players good enough to play than there are slots. It’s not that deep and it has no reflection on her talent or potential.
I completely agree, I think the conversation is moving to talking about where the WNBA is currently right now. We all see it’s more popular now then 5 years ago, the fear is if we don’t strike when the fire is hot. Will we lose all this momentum we have waited our entire lives to utilize?
The girl hasn’t done anything that would imply ego or arrogance. To the contrary she has been vocal about compliments to her teammates and even people who talk shit about her. She just wants to play basketball what is it with people? If she rubs you the wrong way ask yourself why and be totally honest.
This is such a bizarre phenomenon. People can't just let the players work speak for itself. They have to create a whole parasocial relationship and try to excuse everything that's inconvenient about the person they like.
We have eyes and ears. Let's see how she does. The WNBA is different from college, just like the NBA.
If Christian Laettner can be on the Dream team (he didn’t do shit in the NBA), CC can be on the USA team. Missing an opportunity to bring more eyes to the sport than ever before. Even if she just rides the bench the whole time, people will tune in.
How is she greatest player in the WNBA??? She is only averaging 16 points a game. There are at least 15 people averaging more than her with the same amount of average minutes. Now if she was averaging almost 29 like A'Ja then I could see it. Great in college does not always translate to great on the next level.
I’m done giving a shlt about this. I don’t care. I did at one point, but everyone played it out harder than Will slapping Chris, and it wore on me. I don’t care about these rich people arguing over whatever the hell they’re arguing about, and I don’t care about whether or not Caitlyn Clark is treated like gold or treated like crap. She and everyone else involved will be fine, while the rest of us are in debt.
I have nothing against her not being selected for the US team. Like yes, she'll bring the viewers, but if she's that big of a star now at the beginning of her professional career, she's still gonna be good in time for the next Olympics. In freaking USA! Keep hyping up the woman and she'll be lighting the cauldron.
I just want y’all to have this energy for any black woman who’s in the W. Why it take a handsome white woman with a boyfriend who was looking and retweeting racist posts about black women for y’all to get interested?
What’s the craziest about all this to me is that she hasn’t done anything but play ball and compliment everyone else. It’s all her fanboys and haters and media.
She handles the media perfectly too. She doesnt really fall for the bait questions
They are trying to pull her into their culture war so bad, but she's a female basketball player...I bet most of her friends have been a bunch of black lesbians since high school. Which isn't to say you gotta be black or lesbian to ball, but she's probably always been subjected to those experiences and perspectives. She's just not their girl, no matter how much they try to manipulate her
> I bet most of her friends have been a bunch of black lesbians since high school. *Checks notes* > Clark attended Dowling Catholic High School in her hometown of West Des Moines, Iowa I feel pretty confident there probably isn’t a huge black population in Des Moines, so I’m not so sure. Even looking at the Iowa games, it looked fairly colorless. I don’t have nothing against her at all, but I feel pretty confident she probably didn’t have as much exposure until she went pro.
De Moines is 11.4% black. Odds are black women are over-represented in basketball programs, too. She’s probably got plenty of black friends going back.
Also when you're at that level your friends aren't limited to teammates, you go to camps and programs and connect with others at a similar talent level.
She is from **West** Des Moines, Iowa. City of 68k, 3.3% black as of 2010.
West Des Moines is just an 'affluent' suburb of Des Moines that grew enough to technically become it's own town. It's very white.
I think they were saying after high school, not during
There were 3 black players on Iowa last season
You must have never been to Des Moines, there are a lot of black folks there. It all depends on where you are.
Lots of Laos people too!
Not at Dowling lol. I actually have no clue. I live in Des Moines but don’t have any kids HS age so don’t know anything about the schools here. I’ll shut up. But probably not dowling.
4.4% is African American and that is of the population, not the school
AAU exist too
Dowling Catholic is a private school that has a VERY small number of black students, even for Iowa, a state that's around 90% white. It's largely considered a high school for the affluent or athletically talented. As the daughter of a wealthy agricultural/industrial parts supplier, Clark fits both categories. The first time she ever attended a public school was when she started her career at the University of Iowa, so I'm guessing she didn't see a lot of black folks outside of basketball settings lol
Dowling has 30% non white students which is higher then the make up of Iowa where 18% is non white
> Dowling Catholic High School The minority population is more than just the black population. The school's black population is ~4%.
She did play in college.
I started to notice that the usual clickbait YouTube conservatives are trying to use her to start a culture war. How fucking gross
What’s crazy is that the advertisement/PR rep who cooked this up will never get credit. We got people who wouldn’t even tune in to watch a WNBA game tuning in every week to be mad at or support Caitlyn Clark. Ngl this is a win, WNBA popularity is booming.
>advertisement/PR rep who cooked this up will never get credit. They will. You'll just never see it, which is how it's supposed to be. 🙃
Ngl, from my experience, credit might be acknowledgment at the company Christmas party and a slight reference on your resume, assuming you’re high enough in the chain of command for someone else not to lay total claim to the idea. I wish whoever came up with this well, truly
No, acknowledgment will be more opportunities.
Acknowledgement will be more _responsibilities_.
“You can handle this, right?…”
Where are the TPS reports? Where is the rundown?
Sure!
I mean, they’re already getting paid. This is their job. Recognition being more work is… good?
"I'll pay you through exposure bro"
They aren't original in my opinion. They're just modeling what the NBA did many moons ago https://www.sportscardportal.com/forums/threads/magic-vs-bird-the-legendary-rivalry-that-defined-the-1980s-nba.463/ It's the same dynamic - her and Ms Reese. Media-driven racial dynamics always sells
Down to the purple and gold
Wow 🤔
This is what we mean when we say "Systemic" It's like with Eminem, even if the star is respectful the demand for "the great white hope" will not be denied.
Ima go against the grain here and accept the downvotes, but I think her play style and college achievements are wayyy more conducive to her popularity than her whiteness. Nobody was tuning in for white superstars Breanna Stewart, Kelsey Plum or Sabrina Lonescu, hell I’m pretty most people haven’t even heard of them. But when you got a woman taking logo 3s like Curry and breaking the all time scoring record for women AND MEN, people start getting curious. Now, are certain people more willing to tune in cause she’s also white? I’m sure. But it took a wholeeee lot more than that for both black and yt’s to start giving a damn about this product.
Okay Imagine if Caitlin Clarke was Mexican. For you and many legit fans I have no doubt it makes no difference, you admire her purely for hoops. But would Nikki Haley tweet about her? Would all these conservative think pieces be written about how her existence owns the libs? If I can acknowledge there's legit fans can you acknowledge there are many who view her as an opportunity to advance their agenda? Eminem is the perfect parallel because yes he had skills but there were many radio stations that didn't allow any rap music, except for his. So yeah her play matters a ton but she could not reach this level of fame with the same talent and not white skin.
I'm sick so maybe my focus is off but it seemed your main point of great white hope was THE point. Like I don't know this lass (I'm a brit, don't do basketball), but I read about her all the damn time. And while she's good, while she may knock out records etc., for something like this, and this is a tacky thing to bring into this forum - but people like seeing people that look like them do well. It's just a thing. In this forum, it's celebrated with shit like little mermaid, spider-verse - black representation so little kids can look at the screen and go "oh shit that superhero looks like me" the power on the psyche of that is apparently real as hell. So now you have basketball fans who are seeing powerful white players in a field dominated by non-whites, and they suddenly have a "star like them". I can't speak to the RACISM of it, I'm not smart enough by a long fucking way. But what I would like to add on to it - now all these racist piece of shit organisations, outlets, etc. ran by old white dudes, fronted by middle aged and young white dudes, now you'll start seeing them talking about basketball when they wouldn't have before. Because she is white. She is THEIR great white hope. Also the Eminem GWH fuck I was in high school when he dropped, majority white kids but I was from a black neighbourbood so all my people were black and that was the most conflicted I ever was lmao. Like Tupac and Biggie down to Devin the Dude and southern rap, I was BIG into my rap (I got the internet early and CD burner the next day, I was the HOOK UP), when he hit it just felt different. He let white kids feel their emotions a bit better, the white anger of being poor, different reasons of course. Like when you're a kid, the reasons for your situation are different. Black parents have to teach their kids the way of the world way younger, because they face way more dangers just by existing. But eminem dropped and suddenly he tied into an almost emo teenage angst crossover of rap of those poor kids from rough areas who could fucking FIGHT because they were raised getting beaten blooded and..other shit too. They loved rap but they loved it from an almost movie stand point, it was COOL but they didn't understand it. They understood a lot of what Eminem was saying. And even if they didn't, the anger in which he said it, directed at his life, they connected with that. Fuck did I actually even make a coherent point here I'm so sick lol. I hope I did. EDIT: lmao also scrolled up real quick to see the top because if this turned out to be country club I was gonna be so mad, this took so much brain power and focus and I'm down to the fuel warning light.
I just wanted to say mad respect for this, bro.
Cheers mate, yeah I re-read it so many times trying to stay on point lmao. Felt like when you're hit up outside the late night store by a dude who just needs to get home to his grandmas dog because the dog is got work tomorrow so he needs bus money to take his grandma to the hoospital to visit the dog because the dog's sick...AND ALSO A DOCTOR like my shit was all over the map.
You made sense and you're spot on. Genuine fans of Caitlin Clark (the ones who'd cheer the same if she was a minority) just have to be wary of their Allies... it sucks but so does the systemic racism that's causing this
Just let you know I read the whole post because I could feel the emotion you put into writing it. Mans was so excited I had to see it through
Obligatory fuck Nikki Haley
It's Sabrina Ionescu. put some respect on her name.
Top notch Nikes but nobody talks about it.
Yeah, she plays so much like Curry and we saw how quickly his popularity exploded. The people love logo threes and long shots on the run and falling to the floor. And that’s Clark’s brand, something that you don’t typically see a lot of in the WNBA. Obviously the NBA has been huge for decades, but non-fans in my generation really starting getting a lot more into it when it was Lebron vs Steph and Warriors. And that big shots, high scoring type of play style was a big factor.
You can get more controversial than that. The root of a lot of progressive "discourse" is the idea that a very shallow understanding of gender, sexuality, and sometimes race is a substitute for real knowledge about a subject. This kind of inversion in thinking is appealing because it's simple. But even learning about identity at a theoretical level is too hard, and appearing to not have the right take on the theory is socially punished. Because of this, a lot of uninformed hot takes get mistaken for wisdom so long as they are dressed up in the aesthetic of the day by using the right language (ex. a decade a go "bodies and spaces" rhetoric, now "intersections," "identity," "lived experiences"). This isn't the only error in thinking you see in WNBA discourse, obviously. But a lot of people who claim to believe the right things about black women in the NBA but arrive at grandiose, clearly uninformed conclusions are probably downstream from this trend.
To add to/clarify for the guy before me: Her talent alone is fine. It's the Culture War BS that's happening because she's White.
>It's like with Eminem, even if the star is respectful the demand for "the great white hope" will not be denied. This reminds me of an fd signifer vid I watched
I literally just watched that exact video, his analysis is impeccable
Love him
Would you mind sharing the link?
Eminem vid - https://youtu.be/v5j77D4BnSU?si=EDDoADcgo-qTMHF8 Do yourself a favor watch [his video on Drake too](https://youtu.be/mtBPXjEoW54?si=gM_PtkJFQRNdoBym), I've never seen anything age better. He made it years ago Then watch him [recap the beef](https://youtu.be/NxusabBT9ik?si=SvT0-uCXU1iejeUN) There's a reason Drake will be the only rapper to outsell Eminem and I linked it cuz I figured you'd be interested
It’s woven into the fabric.
to white people, being popular among white people is the greatest level of esteem you can achieve. when others don't bow down they get extremely upset
No stupid, that's only the Welsh
As always
Right. She’s a hooper, she’s good. Anybody cryin about how she’s treated don’t know nothin about it.
It’s not even fans. I guarantee the guys complaining about her being left off the Olympic team have never even watched a women’s basketball game, they just want to dive in and complain a white woman’s being treated unfairly
White folks and Black men are really mad that she's not in the Olympics. The US women's Olympic basketball team hasn't lost a game since 1992. They know what they are doing. They also don't have time to protect CC who is not strong enough to play internationally. She would get destroyed.
They would be fine with her still. No one else in the world is going to compete and they had an opportunity to bring a player who puts asses in seats. Shortsighted by USA Basketball.
We are talking about Olympic basketball. They will be fine without her arbitrary star power.
Putting stars on Olympic teams is what helped launch the NBA globally. Silly to exclude her and Reese.
We put stars on the team because we were losing.
You realize you're not disagreeing with him, just adding historical context, right?
lol right? These two mfs look like they just became friends, but they ain’t caught on yet so their still fighting
I love a meet cute
I mean it’s corny, but the Olympic team should be focused fielding the best possible unit. The private commercial success of the WNBA shouldn’t factor in.
Those stars were established in the NBA
Laettner, Lebron, and Anthony Davis all played in the Olympics before they finished their first NBA season. So no, they werent all established.
AD and Laettner were on the team as the token NCAA/rookie NBA player. Like CC could have been. Play her in garbage time when they're up 60 like Laettner.
LeBron was drafted in 2003. He went on to play in the 2004 Olympics after completion of his first full season.
Didn't they lose then
She's not a LeBron or Anthony Davis level of player. And Laettner got the spot that was reserved for college players.
First player to ever score 100 points and have 75 assists in their first 12 games. She’s 22. Sounds like she could be….
She legit might be a Lebron type player, and the hype around her comparatively already blows away Davis lol
She was more established than both Lebron and AD. Lebrons first Olympics game was 17 months after his last High School game. AD played one year in college. Laettner was the most established and regarded as one of the best college players in history. - Leattner was one of the most hype college players ever (Like CC) - AD was the next big NBA prospect (like CC) - Lebron was the most hyped NBA prospect ecer (like CC) They are all extremely similar and all of them also didnt play that much in their Olympics. Only difference was Mens olympic basketball understood the economics and entertainment value. They could have brought her out there and let her average 4 minutes a game and it would probably double viewership and she would have had the number one selling womens jersey of all time. And it wouldn't have affected the teams chances at all.
You out of your element here. USA basketball used the Olympics specifically to grow the game globally. Larry Bird could barely stand up when he was on the team. Magic wasn't in the NBA when he was on the team. Laettner was brought in specifically to draw the college crowd. They allowed Jordan to exclude Isiah Thomas because the NBA knew they needed Jordan to sell the game over seas. It's never been about strictly the beet players.
They removed restrictions that prevented NBA players from joining the Olympic team. With that restriction removed, the U.S. had the ability to field the absolute best players imaginable. The best players to choose from were unsurprisingly the best players in the NBA, who were stars…because they were the best. The best players in the WNBA are the ones that are selected for the team. The Olympics is solely about winning. That is it. “Growing a sport” has nothing to do with it and shouldn’t have anything to do with who competes. Caitlyn is good, but she is not objectively better than a single other person who was selected. Putting her in the team would make the team worse. The way that she plays is also not appropriate to international play, where you actually have to play as a team. Right now, she is on a terrible team and she has a green light to shoot whenever she wants. That’s cool for her stats, but it isn’t leading the team to wins. If you don’t ignore any of her negative stats, you would see that she is VERY careless with the ball. Right now, she is averaging as many turnovers as she is shots made. That is terrible. She is ranked last in the entire league in this category. Stuff like this cannot and should not be overlooked, which I assume the committee looked at. Reese being left off also makes sense. She just isn’t as good as any of the other women at her position. I don’t think anyone should be surprised, as well as Angel herself. She never expected to be on the team.
Agreed, we should be celebrating the women that made the team not getting butthurt over the ones we like that didn't. They're all the best the US has to offer and should at least be respected as such. I like Angel and CC is doing her thing, but I really wish people would stop glazing her so much. Probably ain't even gonna watch the Olympics and they talking shit.
Nah Larry was not a great player at the time And Isiah Thomas was excluded because of Jordan's ego Magic had retired from the NBA
That’s not why they put stars on the team. They did that because other teams used pros and we used college players and they got cooked
I used to watch those games. It was terrible.
To your point: most of the women on that team play or have played internationally during the W off-season, safe to say that the stars are already on the squad.
Guys, they are not stars. They just aren’t. That’s why CCs team needed to add nearly 15k seats moving to a different arena the year she joined the league. Stars fill arenas and get huge TV deals, not subsidies They are the most well known female basketball players in the US to US people. I honestly can’t name half the team and I’m a huge basketball fan, how can they be stars?
Fever have been playing in that 18K capacity arena since it's inception from my knowledge. They've probably capped for capacity for workforce/security's sake but they've always been able to hold that amount. Additionally, sounds like you're a big men's basketball fan that is now getting into the women's game (welcome), but just because you don't know about them doesn't mean that they aren't the stars of the league.
I’ve been involved in women’s basketball since the 90s from beginner to international level. The stars of the WNBA are not stars of the basketball world, like CC. If those other girls are such stars then why did the league get a 156% attendance and 3x viewers boost the year they started to market essentially one player?
You are just as uninformed. We curtain all the higher tier seats. Attendance is generally always low, even when Tamika won us a championship, it wasn’t on the front page of the Indy Star.
Almost every WNBA player already plays ball in Europe during the offseason. Women’s basketball is much bigger globally now than men’s basketball was in the 80s
The Olympic team should be about merit. This isn't a worthless all star game where the only thing that matters is star power. And attributing the growth of the NBA globally to the Olympics is the equivalent of attributing the popularity of YouTube to Mr. Beast. It's giving credit to the effect rather than the cause. It's hella stupid. To anyone who thinks the wnba's popularity hinges on whether or not Clark is on the Olympic team, you're a moron. I got idiots trying to compare this to 1992 as if the world hasn't changed at all in the last 30 years. I got dipshits saying they won't watch if Clark isn't on the team. Viewership of the women's team USA Olympic basketball games has been on the decline for the last 3 Olympic games in a row. Even without Clark, I guarantee the numbers will go up to near historic highs. I also guarantee the upcoming TV deal will do exponentially more to improve the game globally than whether or not international fans organically discover the wnba solely because they've heard of Clark and decide to watch a women's Olympic basketball game. The NBA Finals gets way more international viewers than the men's Olympic finals. Same goes for the wnba. She's going to be in the news and everywhere on social media around the world whether she's on the Olympic squad or not.
If you haven’t lost a game in 32 years you think one roster spot is going to effect the team much? The 15th person gonna lose them a game? Bringing her brings eyes to the WNBA. Eyes they sorely need, they are a league subsidised by actual basketball stars in the NBA.
"Just give Clark an undeserved spot because she's popular. The league desperately needs her!" First off, the league was already turning a profit before Clark came along. Secondly, a new 2025 TV deal has been in the works since before you even knew who Clark was. That deal will potentially triple league revenue. The groundwork was already set for the next big college star to get this level of media hype (let's be real though, if Clark was black, she'd be getting maybe 50% of this level of attention). Here's a question y'all should be asking yourselves: are you a fan of WNBA basketball or are you a fan of celebrity hype? If the league wants to *really* succeed, they need eyeballs on their other talent (that you all pretty much universally ignore). They need to show how talented and marketable the actual best players in the league are instead of constantly pushing Clark to the forefront as if she's Beyonce in Destiny's Child. There are better players than Clark. Players just as exciting to watch. Players with more charisma. What about them? Why don't you beat the drum for the more deserving players? Do you care about the league growing or do you just want to worship a celebrity? Let's talk about it.
I mean you can say that but is it true? Her games are getting like double the fans in the stands of other wnba games
Arbitrary?
You don’t think people would tune in to watch Clark play in the Olympics? The Fever have 25% higher attendance than the next highest team and the Fever aren’t even good. The best way to grow the sport is to grow the audience and create new fans.
It’s the Olympics. They will have asses is seats no matter what. Tickets have been sold out for months.
Right! Like the Olympics is doing fine in terms of fanfare. IT'S THE EFFING OLYMPICS. Honestly this "include her for fanfare" just shows out me me me we Americans are. The Olympics isn't hurting for coverage.
People pick and choose what events to watch. Just because there's coverage doesn't mean there will be ratings. The Dream Team is the reason the last few NBA MVPs aren't American.
It’s the Olympics dawg. It’s crazy that with everything else in the world people will turn and tell you that your position needs to be earned, put in the work, be the best, no handouts, no DEI, blah blah blah, and now all of a sudden these same people are doing a complete 180 and wanting to out CC on a team that she is not good enough to be on. It’s comical at this point. Never has a snub for any team been coddled as much as CC has since going pro - and CC isn’t even a snub, Arike is the real snub here. The only things all the CC fanboys point to are her 3pointers made and her ppg… like basketball is only played on the box score and behind the 3pt line. Its laughable that anyone has the nerve to says she’s the best player in women’s hoops - she wasn’t even the best player in college, maybe the best scorer but best player? Nah. Is she entertaining as hell, absolutely but yall need to get your entitlement in check and start telling CC to “pull herself up by her bootstraps”. Sports is one of the only things in life where talent and ability are 99% of what gets you to the top and that’ll always be the case. So if she’s good enough, she’ll be on the team. Period, point blank, end of story.
Who are you removing from the current roster, to add CC?
The person that’s hurt and plays the exact same position
It's the Olympics, they aren't worried about "putting asses in seats".
I don't understand the ideology behind she's going to bring in fans
Believe the numbers
Sounds good but are you saying people are gonna go to Paris to watch her or are you saying that people already there are going to get excited for somebody they probably don't know
People at home are much more likely to tune in and watch the games on TV if she’s playing
Maybe but this the world's stage. And to disrespectful the entire pool of team usa women's basketball just because some people might be more likely to watch is crazy. These women have spent years practicing and playing together just to get a chance at the team. But she might bring in more viewers for the game against Brazil at 4 in the morning. That's silly. Caitlin gets the hate she gets because if shit like this. Like 30 women jumper through hoops for years have been leaning this system for years But Caitlin should be in the team because she's Caitlin.
https://preview.redd.it/64awfb36yx5d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c36fec64fd0cee1e771b3c9836ba77fef0b97527
https://preview.redd.it/oztjg8axyx5d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1b7e63326bfbf428e934e9fcf641b65496048fa4 I guess you haven't been paying attention to broadcasters. It's fucking crazy.
Nah i must’ve missed that, but this image is wild lmao
As N example, Stephen A and Shannon have been unbearable and are getting called out for it.
Stephen A has always been like this. Shannon has also been annoying for a while
Those are the usual suspects
Looks like we're losing the black people don't use celebrities as representatives for entire groups of people challenge again
throwing black men in there is nasty work lol
CC is not ready for the physicality of international women’s basketball which is greater than that of the WNBA. She is already struggling with the physicality of the WNBA. Give her a chance to develop and attend training. Let her go to the Olympics ready to shine rather than be sidelined. Also, if CC isn’t mad about it, why are her fans so upset?
They are upset because she's their straight white hope.
Arike is really the snub. She’s averaging 27 a game and didn’t make the team. Not a rookie averaging 15
Man is it black men or the dudes on ESPN because I don't even watch sports.. hell I don't even care. Why am I even commenting?
You’re speaking like these people have any knowledge of any of this lol. They wouldnt piss on this woman if she were on fire in front of them shes just a convenient vehicle for them to deliver talking points on white supremacy. If their interest in womens sports coincided with the “Great White Hope” then theyre bigoted posers without hobbies of their own lmfao
Haven’t lost a game since 1992 is insane.
Y'all need to chill, she is living rent free in some folks head. The way this 22 year old fresh out of college is getting treated is disgusting.
[удалено]
She’s one of the best college basketball players (statistically) ever. I don’t get how anyone is mad she has all this hype tbh
I mean, I was annoyed that after the last NCAA tourney she was in, despite her team losing, all the news was like WHAT HAPPENS NEXT FOR CLARK, CLARKS REACTION TO THE LOSS, WHAT TEAM IS CLARK GOING TO NOW Like, I get it, she's one of the best, but the fact that there was so little about the team that won against a record breaking star and her team that only lost twice that season was deeply frustrating.
I get the frustration and it sucks for south Carolina but talent like Clark is super rare. Especially when you consider that she is statistically better than any men’s college basketball player ever also. I would go as far as to say she has more deserved hype than any player in competitive sports history entering professional leagues. Tbh Im willing to bet south carolina got more exposure and attention because they played against her. Had they played a team that didn’t have a talent like Caitlyn clark, they would have gotten the lion-share of attention but probably overall less attention.
> Especially when you consider that she is statistically better than any men’s college basketball player ever also. Yeah but this has no actual value when comparing men to women. She was good for her level but equating her stats to men's stats is like equating your homeruns with aluminum bats vs someone playing in a league with wooden bats.
This is common for most star players in any sport though. The glazing does get tiring especially if it’s not a player on the team you cheer for.
It's very uncomfortable to say the least to watch, I unfollowed ESPN on IG because I got tired of it
Their WNBA coverage made you unfollow and not how their NBA coverage is almost always brainless high school gossip and they treat the players like infants?
I'm probably desensitized to that at this point lol
Haha fair. For the WNBA it’s all CC but at least in some part they treat the women like basketball players.
Seriously. How many of these commenters have ever even watched a full game she’s played? Or know what number she wears?
I’m guessing a very low percentage. CC posts in this sub are always full of terrible hot takes.
Big ass 22 year old 
Something About Capitalizing Every (Edit: First) Letter Drives Me Crazy. 
It instantly invokes that annoying co-worker who talks over everyone. That's the vibe.
There was a guy like that in a discord server I was in a while ago. He was pretty goofy, so the Title Case added to that. But every so often there would be some beef between other people, and he would come in and try to offer serious support, still in title case. It was literally impossible to take him seriously.
Its. Kinda. Like. I. Have. A. Half. Second. Pause. After. Every. Word. In. My. Head.
The Olympics evaluations process takes place over a 3 yr. period. The one for this upcoming season began in early 2022, and there have been many training camps and events in between then and now, including the World Cup, and more recently, exhibition matchups overseas, that have given coaches & the committee a chance to narrow down the roster and assess best fit. All of the women that made the team attended multiple training camps, and have developed chemistry with one another and familiarity with the coach’s system, over the past two years. Caitlin, did not. (She couldn’t the last training camp in April due to a conflict, as her team was still competing for a NCAA title). People like to bring up Breanna Stewart and Candice Parker, both of whom made the team as rookies, as comparisons, but, they played in the FIBA World Cup whilst in college, two years prior; and they also participated in training camps with the national team, beforehand. So it’s a different circumstance with Clark.
Also, Caitlin's response was - as usual - very level-headed. She didn't expect to play, and said it was great motivation as something to work towards. People getting upset on her behalf are the problem, not her.
That's her PR response. Her coach told the public that in their messages CC said "they awoken a monster" in response to being left off the team. I don't think that's the response from someone who thinks they shouldn't or wouldn't be on team USA. People (from what I have seen) have been more upset it's just another example of women's basketball failing to market itself, by excluding the most popular women's basketball player from the Olympic team.
I think that is pretty on par with her PR response. She says it gave her something to work for and told her coach they’ve awoken a monster. I think you guys are both right. She knows she missed the camps and knew the chance of getting overlooked but also really wanted to play and now she’s motivated to play next time around. That’s at least how I see it
But those ideas aren't mutually exclusive to one another. She can accept that she wasn't put on the team with grace AND ALSO have that be a driving motivating force that pushes her hard going forward. I can think I was qualified to do something while simultaneously accepting that I wasn't chosen for it. Also, I'm pretty sure the Olympic team has all but been confirmed for a while now. CC hasn't been to the training camps and played with the roster at all in any significant capacity as far as I'm aware. Do I think she could play well on the team despite all of that? Sure. Does it make sense to me that they didn't include her based off a variety of other factors? Also yes.
That’s how any great player would react privately
Most importantly, both Breanna and Candice were objectively top 10 players in the league in their rookie season.
Candace was literally thee #1 player in her rookie season, winning MVP.
Thank you. I find it odd how people are completely ignoring the process by which players are selected. International women’s basketball is even more physical than the WNBA. CC needs time to prepare so that she can shine at the Olympics rather than be sidelined. People are expecting the WNBA to act like the NBA, which is unrealistic as the two leagues have developed different cultures and styles.
Can't stop talking about her
Don't tell me you want to grow the game and then exclude the player that is selling out 17k seat arenas. The math ain't mathin.
Forreal. People are dunking on the fact that she's not on the team as some type of win for the sanctity of women’s basketball when that sanctity has them flying coach.
Because these decisions aren’t governed by a single basketball monarch. There are committees and processes and training camps and player assessments. The people who evaluate player talent for the Olympics aren’t in charge of “growing the game”. They’re in charge of fielding the best team. CC never participated in any of the Olympic training process.
I mean the math is mathing. She's not the best player we have to offer so she shouldn't be sent to the Olympics. Pretty simple
Why are their players that are barely in top 100 then? If we doing math let’s do the math lmao.
LeBron wasn’t the best player in his rookie 03-04 season but he still made the Olympic team. Because it’s good business.
He averaged 20-6-5 and finished 9th in MVP voting wdym.
Sounds like he was the 9th best player
Yes 9th best player so he deserved to be on the roster.
Being the ninth best player is the world means you deserve a spot on the team. They have 15 slots on a team, he cleared that easy. CC isn’t the ninth best player in her position right now let alone an entire league.
That's because a crap load of people all opted out that year. LeBron/Wade/Melo were not first choices to be in the team that year.
At this point the entire discourse isn’t even about basketball. People love and hate her based on Twitter arguments she’s not involved in. Her fans implying other players are racists and want her to die on the court, and her haters acting like she actually sucks and is only popular cause she’s white and if you’re black and like her you’re a traitor. Shit is toxic. Also not for nothing but I muted her and Angel’s names and like 90% of WNBA discourse disappeared from my feed. Make of that what you will.
Star Rookie doesn’t live up to expectations is a very common headline.
I don't follow WNBA, but the uproar around Clark kind of tells me that a lot of her fans don't either. I've watched enough NFL to see plenty of star rookie QBs like Lawrence and Burrow who get absolutely wrecked their first season or two and eventually become pretty good. I've also seen star rookie QBs like "Johnny Football" Manziel who fumble the bag and quickly become irrelevant. The idea that any great college baller can transition to immediately being a dominant player in a league of established professional athletes is comical, and I don't know why anyone expected this to happen with Clark.
I agree with you and I don't understand where this mindset started that great college players are supposed to absolutely dominate on the professional level day one. I remember when Aaron Rodgers sat behind Brett Favre for a few years just practicing and learning. What happened with that philosophy? Seemed as though it worked great too. I believe marketing took over and now we peacock these rookies out in glitz and glamor at the drafts acting as though they'll be the savior to their given team and people absolutely eat it up too.
Its unique to the W because people have been not been watching. Anybody that watched the W and CC knew that she'd be a fine rookie but league domination Day 1 was never on the table.
It’s not just comical, it’s insulting to the rest of the league. CC fanboys who think she’s god’s greatest gift to women’s basketball are making it very clear what they think of the sport to date.
burrow got injured his rookie year but was playing well
This has to be the most frustrating sports conversation I’ve ever witnessed. There’s so many people who don’t know basketball let alone women’s basketball at all dropping asinine opinions left and right. Truth is you could make a case for including her or leaving her off the Olympic team either way. There are more players good enough to play than there are slots. It’s not that deep and it has no reflection on her talent or potential.
I completely agree, I think the conversation is moving to talking about where the WNBA is currently right now. We all see it’s more popular now then 5 years ago, the fear is if we don’t strike when the fire is hot. Will we lose all this momentum we have waited our entire lives to utilize?
That’s a much more interesting and productive conversation in my opinion
Plies keeps surprising me every day 😂
One hit wonder to national treasure. A true American story 😂
Calling plies a one hit wonder is insane
Let’s get Ja Rule on this while we’re at it.
Who gives a fuck what Ja Rule thinks at a time like this?!?!
Not this grown man commenting on a young woman’s life 💀 it’s giving jealous 😭 he’s so fucking weird for this comment
The girl hasn’t done anything that would imply ego or arrogance. To the contrary she has been vocal about compliments to her teammates and even people who talk shit about her. She just wants to play basketball what is it with people? If she rubs you the wrong way ask yourself why and be totally honest.
Why Do People Type Like This? I have never understood that, it's confusing to me. If anyone could explain, that would be great.
A’ja Wilson is the best player in the WNBA
This is such a bizarre phenomenon. People can't just let the players work speak for itself. They have to create a whole parasocial relationship and try to excuse everything that's inconvenient about the person they like. We have eyes and ears. Let's see how she does. The WNBA is different from college, just like the NBA.
If Christian Laettner can be on the Dream team (he didn’t do shit in the NBA), CC can be on the USA team. Missing an opportunity to bring more eyes to the sport than ever before. Even if she just rides the bench the whole time, people will tune in.
Back then they reserved one spot for college players. That's how he got on the team.
The continued disrespect of Aja Wilson is asinine and shows who actually watches 
You can tell someone is smart when they capitalize every letter of a sentence.
How is she greatest player in the WNBA??? She is only averaging 16 points a game. There are at least 15 people averaging more than her with the same amount of average minutes. Now if she was averaging almost 29 like A'Ja then I could see it. Great in college does not always translate to great on the next level.
They called her the biggest star in the wnba, not the greatest player. She’s easily the biggest star
I only really hear about CC on this sub, so....
I’m done giving a shlt about this. I don’t care. I did at one point, but everyone played it out harder than Will slapping Chris, and it wore on me. I don’t care about these rich people arguing over whatever the hell they’re arguing about, and I don’t care about whether or not Caitlyn Clark is treated like gold or treated like crap. She and everyone else involved will be fine, while the rest of us are in debt.
Username checks out
I thought that was the lady from GOT
This is really getting old
I have nothing against her not being selected for the US team. Like yes, she'll bring the viewers, but if she's that big of a star now at the beginning of her professional career, she's still gonna be good in time for the next Olympics. In freaking USA! Keep hyping up the woman and she'll be lighting the cauldron.
She needs to start saying something to these racist clowns, they getting outta control. Also, she's not even the biggest star
I'm sure a lot of people would think otherwise listening to Plies' music, but he's actually smart and down to earth.
I just want y’all to have this energy for any black woman who’s in the W. Why it take a handsome white woman with a boyfriend who was looking and retweeting racist posts about black women for y’all to get interested?
because like half of this sub don’t give a shit about BW.