Love or hate her, Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark has brought new eyes and a fresh attitude to the WNBA. Apparently, that’s rubbing some of the established players the wrong way.
Take Chennedy Carter, a considerably less feted guard for the rival Chicago Sky. Carter went viral Saturday for a hard foul on Clark. She spent the night posting and “liking” defenses of herself on X — until she decided to go off on a rant on Clark’s ability.
She asked “what does she bring to the table?”
In case you missed it during the Fever’s 71-70 win over the Sky, this was the foul:
The league got a bounty on Caitlin Clark pic.twitter.com/aY2qlA2SOb
— Ahmed/The Ears/IG: BigBizTheGod 🇸🇴 (@big_business_) June 1, 2024
As Bleacher Report noted, the foul was costly for the Sky in a number of ways.
After the away-from-the-ball foul, Clark was given a free throw, which she drained. Considering the Fever only won by a single point to grab their second win of the season, that ended up being one very problematic point. Carter also later had the foul upgraded to a technical by the league.
In addition, Carter teammate (and Caitlin Clark rival) Angel Reese was fined $1,000 for refusing to talk to the media — and the Sky organization was fined $5,000 for not ensuring that its players followed the league’s media availability rules.
#WNBA announced the Chicago Sky and Angel Reese have been fined. #SportsBiz @Sportico pic.twitter.com/ptMXNSsGtW
— Dylan Manfre (@Dylan_Manfre11) June 2, 2024
As for Carter, she had this to say to the media after the game: “I ain’t answering no Caitlin Clark questions.”
However, she was more than willing to talk about it on Threads, Meta’s mostly vacant answer to X/Twitter.
“& that’s that on that cause beside three point shooting what does she bring to the table man,” Carter wrote in a Threads post.
She also defended video of herself and Reese appearing to celebrate on the sidelines after the hard foul. Reese was one of Clark’s chief antagonists in the NCAA Women’s Tournament over the past few years and was the No. 7 pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft.
“my dawg fasho, got all my teammates,” Carter wrote in response to a post featuring the clip of her and Reese hugging.
So, what does Clark bring to the table? Well, as Fox News noted, she’s only the second WNBA player to have 100 points, 50 rebounds and 50 assists in her first 10 career games, after New York Liberty star Sabrina Ionescu. There’s that.
As for Chennedy Carter: According to ESPN, she’s averaging 12.6 points, 2.0 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game in a spotty WNBA career that’s spanned three seasons with three different teams. She played last year for a professional team in Turkey.
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Also, despite an early-season penchant for picking up technical fouls, Clark has established herself as a team player on the Fever. One of the reasons Carter has had three WNBA teams in four years is that she’s well known for being a mercurial teammate on the best of days.
According to Just Women’s Sports, the former No. 4 pick in the 2020 WNBA Draft was suspended by the Atlanta Dream, her original team, midway through the 2021 season after she stayed in the locker room when the team came out for the second half of a game against the Las Vegas Aces.
She later approached a teammate and indicated she wanted to fight over an argument about playing time. The team said she was sidelined due to “conduct detrimental to the team.”
In 2022, she was traded to the Los Angeles Sparks. She played 24 games for them before the Los Angeles Times reported she had been “benched for poor conduct during the season.” In other words, a cheap shot on Clark is hardly an outlier for her.
However, perhaps the best explanation about what Clark “bring[s] to the table man” was this comment on X:
she’s literally the reason everyone is gonna get pay raises and private charter planes for the wnba, why do they want her gone 😭😭😭😭 https://t.co/2OZAKH59O5
— FearBuck (@FearedBuck) June 1, 2024
Precisely. There’s a certain fanbase for the WNBA who like the league out of a sociopolitical obligation, and the insufferable members of that fanbase — which seems to, as a rule, know shockingly little about basketball, but everything about which identity group is being celebrated this month — have long insisted that women get paid the same amount as NBA stars, despite the fact they bring in only a fraction of what those in the men’s game do.
The White House even managed to get involved in the drama over WNBA salaries, and one columnist for MSNBC made the preposterous assertion that gender pay equity was part of the reason Brittney Griner was detained in Russia. (The fact she apparently had illegal drugs on her while she was on foreign soil apparently never occurred to him.)
OK, then: Caitlin Clark and the 2024 WNBA Draft class (including Angel Reese) seem poised to elevate the league to new highs of public awareness, with record ratings for Clark’s first few games. The response from one of the beneficiaries of this? Simply: “that’s that on that cause beside three point shooting what does she bring to the table man.”
If Chennedy Carter wants to donate whatever raises she gets over the next few years thanks to WNBA audience growth, she can talk (assuming she’s even in the league that long).
Carter ought to put her money where your mouth is or shut up. Then again, it may be a moot point; given her history, it’s likely only a matter of time before she plays her way off of another team and out of the league. Meanwhile, love her or loathe her, rest assured that Clark will still be around.
