TWO TICKETS FOR CAITLIN CLARK ARE AVAILABLE: THE WNBA NEVER PROTECTED HER
Nothing could be worse for a fledgling league than injuries that have forced her to miss 16 of 29 games, meaning people who thought they’d watch a basketball miracle are selling prime arena tickets
Tuesday night in downtown Los Angeles, the most mesmerizing basketball player of our lives appears for a 7 p.m. tipoff. Is somebody conducting a public seance for Kobe Bryant? Are any welcoming bashes scheduled for Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Shaquille O’Neal? Do even the unhoused care? When tickets went on sale, I needed two minutes to crush the computer. Honestly, I’ve watched all the legends of men’s basketball, including Michael Jordan by the hundreds and LeBron James until I’m bored.
This time, I was compelled to see Caitlin Clark. She has done more to propel women’s basketball than any gentleman — any of them, in any era, from Bill Russell to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander — has transformed his sport individually. She turned TV viewership into the rage of media, with 18.9 million people watching one Sunday and turning the NBA and MLB into ratings stooges. Sales of merchandise rose past 600 percent. Values of franchises soared beyond belief, to the point 18 teams will fill the WNBA by 2030. Last year, she made us all tune into the league for the first time.
She did.
Caitlin Clark.
No one else.
But this year, she has missed 16 regular-season games and played only 13 times. She hasn’t suited up since July 15, when she grabbed her right groin area. She spilled tears on the floor, knowing it was her fourth midsection injury this season — after a left quad strain, a left quad injury and a left groin injury. She has been in pain on both sides. She will not perform in southern California. The Indiana Fever’s game against the L.A. Sparks is just another August event. Two tickets are available.
And when it became apparent Clark is very human, absorbing torture like the rest of us, she reminded the commissioner — and a greedy, lightweight set of owners — that women’s hoops drops to a much lower plateau without her. Instead of expanding, the stinkers should have protected Clark from beatings she has taken from opponents who loathe her. For the second season, officials seem more interested in berating her than safeguarding her from a long list of rivals. Atop a weekend story in the Wall Street Journal, which suggested the government should safeguard her from a “hostile environment” — when President Trump is suing Rupert Murdoch — a photo showed Clark screaming on the court as a strong-armed Golden State player was atop her. Did the Valkyrie have a piece of her hair?
Seems the league beat her up, because she’s a white woman from West Des Moines who grew up in a Catholic family. Why would any money-maker with working brains allow such treatment? The WNBA needs her on the court to sell tickets and gain more exposure, which isn’t happening as ratings have fallen more than 55 percent.
“The star player of the league is not being protected,” teammate Sophie Cunningham said. “It’s her second year and I’m like, ‘What are people doing?’ When people argue that she's not the face of the league, or if our league would be where we're at without her, you're dumb as s—t. You're literally dumb as f—k.”
Even Clark, who has tried to blast through the wickedness, said she is a nightly target. “Everybody is physical with me. They get away with things others don’t,” she said.
Is she injured because she’s treated like a tackling dummy? All we know: She never missed time with injuries at Iowa and started all 40 games last season. It’s shocking to see a player of her magic and resilience sitting on the bench. She keeps a daily journal and tries to spill to a sports psychologist.
“I think just it all comes back to having good perspective on everything,” Clark said. “Certainly there's frustration and a little bit of sadness. This is the first time I haven’t felt like a young body that can run around and sprint every day and just continue to do that. Being a professional athlete, you really have to take care of both your body and your mind — it’s been a journey learning about that. It makes me really intentional about what I want to accomplish, and it’s a good reset if I’m feeling nervous or anxious about the game, to kind of wipe that away.”
The Fever have won five straight and are 9-7 in games she has missed. Consider it a revenge banner for Clark, who hopes to return soon and build on a 8-5 record with her in the lineup. Is she the league MVP? No. Will some of us make a suggestion she should be the MVP permanently?
Damned right.
"We've had updates from the training staff, and her recovery is going well,” coach Stephanie White said. “You know for us, it's staying the course and making sure that we're really diligent about each step that we take, and that we don't have setbacks, and that we're patient with it. I know she wants to be out here on the floor, and we want her out here on the floor, but making sure that she's ready is the most important thing. We're going to take it one step at a time, one day at a time, and go from there.”
The coach would like to discuss the Fever as a whole. “A blessing in disguise,” White said. “You know, we’ve got a deep team. I think I said it early when C was out the very first time, and while we don’t like it, everybody else finds themselves. And no one is afraid to make the big play, offensively or defensively. She demands so much gravity.”
When she returns, the stalkers will be after her. And I don’t mean a 55-year-old Texas man, Michael Lewis, who thought he enjoyed “an imaginary relationship” with Clark and was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison. Look out for the persecutors on the court. “She’s being targeted,” Geno Auriemma, the king of women’s college hoops. “I don’t remember when Michael Jordan came into the NBA, guys looking to go out and beat him up.”
It has reached the point where fans are so bored that they’re throwing sex toys on the court. In Atlanta, a fan was arrested and faces multiple charges. Security, officiating, another labor meeting as players ponder an eventual strike — what’s next? The WNBA actually hires some part-time refs — who make $1,538 a game — to team with “veterans” who work G League and NCAA games. Wake up. Spend. Or more tickets will be available.
I have no interest in sex toys. "Stop throwing dildos on the court,’’ Cunningham wrote. "You’re going to hurt one of us.”
Probably Caitlin Clark.
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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.