WNBA – The brutal attack on Caitlin Clark: “We wouldn’t be talking about her so much without this”

Par Joël Pütz | Journaliste sportif

Caitlin Clark has become a driving force in the WNBA since her 2024 draft, catapulting the league’s viewership to a new level. But some believe the Fever point guard would never have achieved this level of notoriety without a specific event…

The Caitlin Clark vs. Angel Reese debate is giving the WNBA a massive amount of media exposure, but it’s also a highly toxic topic. As rivals since the NCAA (they even faced off in the college finals, won by Reese, who trash-talked her opponent), the two players are naturally drawn parallels at every opportunity. Except the gap between the two is growing by the day…

Indeed, Clark has already established herself as an MVP candidate in the space of a year, having a blast on the court while keeping Indiana competitive. Reese can’t say the same thing about her and Chicago… Yet, some continue to claim that CC wouldn’t be enjoying such hype without her rival, as Joy Taylor recently stated on Joe Budden’s podcast:

Joy Taylor sounds off on the Angel Reese – Caitlin Clark debate

(It’s) the Magic Johnson, Larry Bird moment for the WNBA. Like, this is great. I’m a storyteller. I think storylines are so f*ing important. I think you need villains. I think you need heroes. You need st to sell. You got to sell a fight — like, brand all of this. And it upset white men to watch this strong, winning, unapologetic Black woman be in Caitlin’s face. And they still cling to it.

And it’s now like spun to this whole thing where like Caitlin’s better than Angel and blah, blah, blah. I just said, we would not be talking about Caitlin Clark the way that we do if it wasn’t for that moment with Angel Reese, and I will die on this. It’s crazy to me, every time I bring this up, they’re like, ‘Angel’s not better. We would’ve been talking about her anyway.’ No the f*ck you wouldn’t.

And the reason you wouldn’t is I do this every goddamn day. I know what we talk about on my show. We were not doing WNBA topic — whole 15-minute segments — on the fcking show until that happened. Fck off. I know what I’m talking about. It’s not about saying that Angel’s better than Caitlin or that Caitlin wouldn’t be a great player. It’s principle storytelling. I’m not making this up. I know what I’m talking about.

(They) were not arguing on shows — daily sports talk shows — they weren’t even talking about the WNBA. I’m not trying to get women’s sports into the show. And I have power. But I have to be able to say, ‘Do you guys care about this? Do you have an opinion about this? Is this resonating in the culture?’ I can’t just be like, ‘Let’s talk about this,’ and no one’s paying attention to it, and no one has an opinion. That’s not what these shows are.