I Am Tired of The Caitlin Clark Narrative Cycle

I did not want to write this blog. This was supposed to be an off day for me while waiting to see what happened with Manchester City. The NBA Finals seems to be going one way, so there’s nothing to add to the discussion about how Kyrie stinks. I did not want to weigh into this discussion as well, because I have not paid any attention to the WNBA until this year. I don’t know anything. Yet, every week seems to bring a new Caitlin Clark narrative. The sports media, without LeBron or Mahomes, has found their new newsmaker. And I was fine sitting in the shadows, not commenting from afar. That was until I saw this Stephen A clip.

This just took me over the edge. Every single week there is a new Caitlin Clark narrative cycle, perpetuated by the sports media pundit class. I genuinely cannot take it anymore because I literally never hear about basketball. Like a lot of Americans, I pay attention to basketball pretty passively until the playoffs happen. And this year, I’d like to know what’s going on in the WNBA. I have a whole theory about how the reason Caitlin Calrk and the WNBA have blown up is that women’s basketball can finally emulate the current NBA meta. Spoiler: it’s all Daryl Morey‘s fault. So every time I get annoyed at the narrative slop, I curse his name.

This blog is less of an actual blog and more of a venting session. But, I imagine I am not the only person who feels this way. And it sucks because it is taking away from everything else happening in the league. I have tried to engage with the NBA the same way I do the NBA. ESPN is the most guilty of this, and that extends to ABC and every other pundit/network under its purview. Every week, though, we are diving fully into a new narrative and Caitlin Clark is at the center of it. “Caitlin Clark and How All the Vets Hate Her,” “Caitlin Clark and The Savior of the WNBA,” “Caitlin Clark and Racism,” and “Caitlin Clark and Why the Olympics Suck.”

The View is talking about Caitlin Clark. The View should not be talking about sports, let alone talking. I love speaking to new fans of sports, but not ones who only want to know about sports to let off some insane culture takes.

There are genuine conversations to have about the rise of Caitlin Clark and what that means. This doesn’t mean we only have to speak about her. Are the veterans being a little insane? Yes, they are, but we don’t have to spend a whole week going through her interactions with a 10-year veteran like it’s a Crypto.com Arena Zapruder film. Is she playing well? Yes, the best of all the rookies and on the Fever. But that doesn’t mean she’s the best in the league. She’s top 15, but she’s still a guard behind so many other guards.

I’m getting to the point where I’m going to start wearing Oakleys in a truck, make that my pfp, and start talking about how ESPN should only “talk about basketball.” Or start posting like every WNBA post about Caitlin Clark is a Colin Kaepernick update.

It’s just all so tiring. There are a lot of women who are killing it this season, women who actually made the Olympic team. (Note: this was supposed to be the last paragraph but I got myself on another diatribe). Speaking of the Olympic team, who is the idiot who released the reasoning for Caitlin Clark’s omission from the team? You could just lie. There was no reason to stir up the narrative cycle by blaming it on her fans. There are a couple of reasons you can give without making everyone angry:

1. Caitlin Clark is playing well, but she isn’t outplaying the veteran guards we decided on. As she progresses in her career, it’s more than likely she’ll be added to a future team’s roster.
2. Caitlin Clark has been playing basketball continuously since the beginning of last year’s college season. The United States is committed to winning gold, and cannot risk a player becoming overtired or injured due to overuse.
3. The roster was finalized before Caitlin Clark began playing in the WNBA. USA Basketball only has one goal in mind – gold. We are sure this team is constructed in such a way that we can accomplish that goal.

I literally came up with those as I was typing them. Sometimes maybe the sunglasses avi crew is right that these idiots literally don’t want to get more popular. And it’s annoying I had to go look up who was on the team, because I would only find “Caitlin Clark left out” headlines. I did see that Cameron Brink is on the 3×3 team. That is for reasons. (Uppies).

Don’t get me wrong, Caitlin Clark is already a superstar who is bringing eyes to the game. I think this is because the women’s game playing up to the NBA’s meta. At the same time, I can understand why some veterans and players are disgruntled. I can understand why it’s really annoying seeing Angel Reese saying something reasonable, and then ESPN and every media outlet take it out of context to make Reece look narcissistic and horrible.

Why can’t we just sit in the moment and let Caitlin Clark ball? It should be such an easy thing to do, to watch this class of rookies grow. And, sure, some of the WNBA players aren’t making it easier. But ESPN and the pundit-class is making it impossible. The constant narrative cycle is destroying the best modern chance that women’s basketball has of entering the American sports zeitgeist. And if it fails, they’ll blame everyone else but themselves.

Anyway.

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