Lincicome: It’s up to Clark, WNBA to make the most of her popularity
Curiosity has a short shelf life, so by the time basketball novelty Caitlin Clark arrives hereabouts we shall know what we already suspect, that being just another player is not enough to save a sport, boost a league or add to jersey sales.
All of these things Clark was expected to do, having had some success in college doing just that, turning eyes to women’s basketball that would ordinarily have been closed for napping.
The Chicago Sky, hereafter known as the locals, will not host the Indiana Fever, hereafter known as the Clarks, until late next month, some 16 games into the WNBA season, though the locals do visit the Clarks a couple times before.
Anticipation by then will not likely be as fevered (no pun intended) as has been the beginning for Clark, her play ordinary by any standard, miserable by all expectation.
Her first game in Connecticut attracted a substantial viewership (the most watched WNBA game in 23 years) on one of the ESPNs, the sibling with the number after it, beating the established ESPN and its NHL offering, a playoff game.
While only a couple million viewers for either one is not exactly brag-worthy, the fact that women’s basketball beat men’s hockey is rather like the wounded stepping over the suffering. Or, to put it another way, it is a beginning.
Clark’s home opener sold out and, I am only guessing, most stayed until the end of a 36-point loss to New York in order to watch Clark sitting with her head in her hands. Wanna see my selfie?
This is what comes of hype and playing against teenagers and no fault of Clark’s, who cannot have been so poorly misjudged to be one of those middle of the box score afterthoughts.
Better times must await, not just for Clark but for all of women’s professional basketball, which needs the focus that came with her and the promise she promised. It is up to both the league and Clark that she become what she is supposed to be.
Quite without knowing exactly how it happened, Clark became greater than just another dribbler and shooter while the greater public — meaning the media and eager corporate influencers — embraced Clark as a savior of sorts, starting with campus outings in Iowa and then on to a woebegone outfit in Indianapolis.
She overcame the usual indifference by shooting, passing, rebounding, defending and winning, not that others before her had not done the same thing. But it was Clark who attracted the loudest applause and caused wild projections of greater things to come.
The WNBA has been around for more than quarter of a century, so one would imagine it does not need to be rescued, though a parallel to the NBA does come to mind when the sport could not get its finals on live TV and Larry Bird and Magic Johnson had yet to turn the lights up, though it must also be pointed out that both Bird and Magic went to teams already elite.
It is not enough for Clark to show that she belongs. She must exceed the expectations of others, stuck in a middle market on a team that will be of little help.
Excuses and apologies will have to give way to actual success, and how sincere the well wishes are is suspect. The natural and human reaction to the carnival that came with Clark from players who have gotten neither the attention nor the rewards that she has is resentment.
This is mindful of rookie Michael Jordan’s all-star game where, led by Detroit punk Isiah Thomas, his own team chose to freeze him out. Subsequently, the famous Jordan Rules were devised to make sure that Jordan got the worst of it. We know how that worked out.
A couple of things seem necessary for the flourishing of Caitlin Clark. Most obvious is for her to be on a better team and that may take time, or a trade. More immediately, teams should lower the physicality and intensity against her, not that Clark should not earn all she gets, but she may need an enforcer to keep the goons away.
It is to the benefit of all for Clark to shine. She has. She will. Nor not.