SWARMED BY THE WNBA, CAITLIN CLARK COMMITS 10 TURNOVERS AND LOSES BY 21
She screamed at her coach and was yelled at by a major teammate, and if her debut was an intense struggle, a blowout is a reminder that foes will use physicality and bully her away from three-pointers
The first night left Caitlin Clark in the dark, with a 21-point loss in the Connecticut casino wilds, where she committed a non-transformative 10 turnovers. Those numbers were merely secondary. She was yelled at by her influential teammate, Aliyah Boston, who earned unanimous WNBA Rookie of the Year honors after leading South Carolina to a national title. A TV camera captured them in the tunnel at halftime, arm in arm, with Boston emphatically reminding Clark that she wasn’t at Iowa anymore.
They tapped hands, but there would be more conflict, as Clark grilled her new coach. Christie Sides shouted at the Indiana Fever and didn’t have them prepared to play in the league opener, televised on ESPN2. If this was the original moment to see what Clark brought to the pros — as several commercials ran, one flashing a heart-in-hands to her mother, another showing her role in “Full Court Press” and a Gatorade ad claiming her college career “was just the warmup” — this performance will make critics ask if she’s overrated and her $28-million Nike contract is a racial insult.
That would be much too harsh. It was a mean opener, playing on the road against the Sun in Uncasville, where the halftime show was so boisterous that announcers couldn’t be heard. This was an awakening for Clark, who faced physicality she never saw on her record-breaking trail. She wore light green sneakers and was hounded by an opponent in pink shoes, Dijonai Carrington, and other rambunctious mates. They knew Caitlin Clark was in the house, with the millions they don’t have, and ask Rachel Banham how she liked hitting her in the chops.
Was Clark fixing her teeth when she wasn’t sliding on the floor? Before the game, she sensed what might happen, saying, “If something isn’t perfect, my life’s not going to end. If, you know, we lose the game tonight, my life’s not going to end. I’m just going to learn from it and come back and try to help us win.” She’ll have to do just that. Rarely did she have an open look, hitting 5 of 15 shots — only 4 of 11 from a three-point baseline that included zero logo shots — and adding zero rebounds and three assists. She scored 20 points with garbage-time buckets, but the digit that defined her was the -13, in the plus-minus totals during a 92-71 blowout.
She is 0-1 after almost winning the national championship the past two years. The charter plane returned to Indianapolis, and by Friday, she’ll be back East with a trip to Madison Square Garden, where Breanna Stewart awaits after saying Clark needed “a championship to be considered one of the greats in women’s college history.” Maybe she’ll transport newfangled lessons. Maybe it might take an entire season.
“I think definitely the physicality. I also think some uncharacteristic stuff. Like I pick up the ball and travel, I dribble off my foot,” Clark said. “I pass it on the inbound, I turn it over. Disappointed and no one likes to lose. That’s how it is. Can’t beat yourself up too much about one game. I don’t think that’s gonna help this team.”
Said Sides: “She's a rookie. This is the best league in the world. We've got to teach her. We've got to teach her what these games are going to look like for her every single night. And we've got to eliminate some of that pressure for her, and that's on me.”
For new beginnings, the Fever should work on equipping her with better shots. Clark was swarmed constantly. Did her coaches not do work on perimeter picks? “We’ve got to help her out, better job coming back to the ball,” Sides said. “We worked on that several times this week. We have to do a better job getting someone back to the basketball. Our spacing was not great. Connecticut came in and punched us in the mouth tonight. We’ll be in the gym tomorrow watching a lot of video trying to figure out how not to turn the ball over 25 times.”
Shouldn’t the Fever had known more beforehand? Is that why Clark snapped at Sides as halftime began? Do we really think her merciless style of winning remained in Iowa City? “A few things that, you know, you have to be crisper,” Clark said. “It was physical and obviously wasn’t like the best start. It was just a lot of things to learn from.”
One session involves Alyssa Thomas, who earned her 12th career triple-double after leading the league in rebounds and assists last year. She announced: “This is my game.” It’s a cruel salvo meant for the anti-Caitlins, many of whom are Black and believe she’s earning too much bank before proving worthy of stardom. Did you notice Sun players firing her heart-in-hands maneuver to each other? If Clark loses, she’ll be targeted harshly, even if she sells out buildings far from a major city.
“I think it’s a huge thing. I think a lot of people say it’s not about Black and White, but to me, it is," said A’ja Wilson, one of the league’s best players in Las Vegas. “It really is because you can be top-notch at what you are as a Black woman, but yet maybe that’s something that people don’t want to see. They don’t see it as marketable, so it doesn’t matter how hard I work. It doesn’t matter what we all do as Black women, we’re still going to be swept underneath the rug.’’
Not true Tuesday night. Thomas and Carrington were praised by the broadcast crew, and Clark didn’t receive an arena interview afterward. She’ll have to be immediate in her WNBA progress, or social-media ninnies will pummel her for a rank double-double: 20 points, 10 turnovers. Her next games will be Thursday on Amazon Prime, Saturday on ABC and Monday on ESPN.
She must win this season, more than she loses. If Clark remains in the dark, it won’t be healthy for television, the league and the many advertisers supporting her. For one night, consider it an ungenerous start. The next night cannot be a tank.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.