WNBA Players Archives

Unrivaled making a push to recruit Caitlin Clark

Get ready for a new team that’s on a journey of taking over the Women National Basketball Association; the Unrivaled Basketball Team.

The new WNBA team plans to start off its inaugural season this coming January with a bold vision, top-shelf media deals, and an impressive roster of talent which they hope will earn them a legitimate place within the league. Among many of their visionary moves of taking over is their aspiration of recruiting Caitlin Clark, The star from the Indiana Fever. We all know Caitlin is a bag of talent and rose to limelight with sterling plays and impressive records that won her fans’ hearts all over the world.

Caitlin Clark recently completed her rookie year in the WNBA with a bang; she won the Rookie of The Year Award with an almost unanimous voting. Her selection into the All-WNBA First Team, along with her contribution to Indiana Fever’s strong performances this past season has put her in the spotlight. But after a very exhausting season, Clark announced she would take a break from basketball until April 2025 to rest and recover.

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For the new team Unrivaled, this might pose as a challenge as much as it might be a chance for them to sign the talented guard ahead of their maiden season. The Unrivaled are keen on signing Clark regardless of her desire to go on break.

The team was co-founded by top sports figures Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, and are committed to providing a new level of exposure for women’s basketball. They’ve already agreed to a multi-year media rights deal with major networks like TNT and truTV, which guarantees their games prime-time coverage and even more access on the Max streamer. A deal that will televise 45 primetime games speaks to their ambition to bring women’s basketball to the highest order of visibility.

Perhaps at the core of this ambitious venture is a hope that Caitlin Clark, one of the most talented players in the WNBA, will be part of the league’s launch. Clark’s rookie season brought her individual accolades and also played an important role in the rise in viewership of the WNBA league as a whole; from packed arenas to record breaking audiences on TV. She’s proven to be a game-changer both on and off the court. That is exactly why Unrivaled wants her talent for their maiden season.

Unrivaled, for its part, is prepared to make its pitch. According to sources around the league, it intends to contact Clark in the coming weeks with an offer that’s hard to refuse. They also are counting on the appeal of playing with other WNBA stars like Angel Reese, Kelsey Plum, Brittney Griner, and Skylar Diggins-Smith, along with the chance to be a part of something new and revolutionary in the women’s professional basketball scene, which can make her reconsider her plans for the off-season. Of course, with 26 of the team’s 30 player spots supposedly taken, there is still hope that Clark will take one of the four remaining spots.

The 2024 WNBA season is closed, and the offseason has started. All eyes are on Clark. Will she let Unrivaled’s offer sway her from that plan, or stick to it?

Sue Bird speaks on Caitlin Clark and The Narrative Surrounding The Young Superstar

Caitlin Clark has set the basketball world on fire, always leaving fans and spectators alike with thrilling performances. On the other hand, her rise to fame has also brought along the recent conversation of racism within the WNBA. Sue Bird, a legend in the WNBA, spoke about this issue and gave her thoughts on the treatment of Clark and those around her in the most recent episode of her podcast, “A Touch More”.

Sue Bird, who is in her 21st year in the WNBA, isn’t one to need any lessons on what players have gone through. Racial discrimination tops the multiple struggles the players in WNBA have to face, and during her podcast co-hosted with her wife-the former USWNT superstar Megan Rapinoe-Bird said Clark is not the reason behind why certain WNBA players are treated so poorly.

Sue and Megan discussing the racist language/behavior at games and online and if the responsibility is on players to call it out:

“Racism has been impacting the WNBA well before this year. This is not a new thing…. I do think Caitlin is being used as a pawn. Caitlin didn’t… pic.twitter.com/eJUWf0eZuR
— Vanshay Murdock 🎥🎥 (@VanshayM) October 2, 2024

Instead, Bird believes Clark is being unfairly used as a “pawn” in a greater narrative. “She didn’t bring racism to the WNBA,” Bird said, indicating these are issues that have been around long before Clark’s rise in the league. Bird added frustration that some new fans- those brought to the league because of Clark might have exacerbated an already prevailing issue of racism.

Bird said that so much of the fight of trying to manage racism has fallen to the players themselves. She says, in fact, that players in the WNBA have been forced to take it upon themselves to fight for a better, more inclusive league:. “It’s great to stand up for yourself, but to stand up for others, that’s an even better feeling,” Bird furthered, stating players have drawn inspiration from Black women who have been on the front lines of the league’s battle for equality and respect.

Here's the better version of it:

"These people were my idols. I grew up wanting to be like them"

Yet some of those idols are using every opportunity to tear her down, it's sad😶 https://t.co/lgmQtbAJCk pic.twitter.com/OuYfkaOzfT
— Ashwin (@Sudharsan_ak) September 27, 2024

At a season-closing news conference, Caitlin Clark confronted those who spew hurtful comments as “trolls” rather than true supporters. “Nobody in our league deserves to be receiving any type of racism, hurtful, disrespectful, hateful comments, and threats,”. She defined these people as not being true supporters of the WNBA or basketball fans.

The WNBA also issued a statement, and it had one message loud and clear: “there is no room in the league for racism, much less derogatory remarks toward the players or teams”. But even with such strong messages from the players to fortify their argument, the narrative that surrounds Clark’s place within this now-ongoing conversation only continues to escalate.

Sue Bird spoke on how Clark’s visibility has translated into unfair typecasting of the WNBA players. Bird was incensed most by the media coverage that framed the defensive plays on Clark as acts of jealousy or pettiness. “When people saw players blocking Caitlin’s shot or picking her up full court, it became, ‘oh, they are targeting her,'” Bird said. She referred to this-isolating narrative as disrespectful, adding these defensive plans don’t make the game different from what it is. Bird also criticized how media heads-most of them who hardly report anything on the WNBA-have sensationalized these moments when they should have done the exact opposite just for clicks and views. She was disappointed in how legitimate basketball plays have been contorted into being a little more nasty.

Why the WNBA continues to fail Caitin Clark

Caitlin Clark easily became one of the most exciting players to join women’s basketball, wowing crowds with her notable shooting range, eye for the court, and never-back-down mentality. Not even with the many daggers thrown her way.

She had remarkable college performances at the University of Iowa with the 2023 NCAA Tournament Final Four game being the highlight where she earned 41 points thus sealing her as a talented player capable of shifting the momentum of the sport.

But while the WNBA is on the coattails of Clark’s popularity, the league has failed to capitalize on her talent.

In 2023, the WNBA had its most popular season, generating an estimated $200 million in revenue which is double what the 2019 season generated. With the recent increase in viewership and attendance of WNBA games at considerable levels, it is no surprise that the presence of players like Caitlin Clark has been a big help towards achieving those numbers. The Iowa native’s fandom from her collegiate career has been translated smoothly into the WNBA, with Clark’s No. 22 jersey for the Indiana Fever being a hot commodity across the nation. Her legions of fans from the University of Iowa and basketball enthusiasts alike show up enmass to witness her expertise on the court.

Despite her critics, Clark’s star power has placed her at the center of many conversations. She has broken records and dropped buckets from distances most players wouldn’t touch. She has been compared to NBA stars like Steph Curry, being one of the results of her ease at draining deep three-pointers. In her college career, Clark averaged an astonishing 27.8 points per game her junior year-a type of scoring that has directly translated to the professional level. Her firepower on offense and love for the game make her one to watch, and her appeal outreaches traditional basketball demographics. But amid all the noise and fanfare surrounding her, Caitlin Clark battles one of the most significant issues of the WNBA. Negligence!

Probably most noticeably, the physical play that has harassed her this whole season has forced the inability of the league to protect its stars into the open. Clark has continually been double- or even triple-teamed, harassed across the court by defenders. That is fair for a player of her calibre but what has stood out most is the lack of calls going in her favor. It would appear the WNBA referees seem very reluctant to blow their whistles when Clark is on the receiving end of roughing tactics.

At one point in the playoffs, this boiled over when she took a poke to her eye that left her with a black eye from Connecticut Sun DiJonai Carrington. Despite the blatant injury that knocked Clark out, Carrington was not ejected, and the physicality has only continued. In another encounter, Chicago’s Chennedy Carter came with a hard shoulder check that went almost unpunished at first but later got upgraded to a flagrant foul by the league. It shows a greater problem in the inability of the WNBA to protect its most marketable assets.

If Caitlin Clark is going to develop into a solid professional star, then the WNBA needs to do more to stand by her. The referees need to be much quicker on the whistle, calling fouls when physical play crosses a line.