Liberty 104, Fever 68: No news
No Caitlin Clarks were harmed in the making of this article
Two and a half weeks ago the New York Liberty beat the Indiana Fever by 36 points. Last night they did it again. In that first meeting, Caitlin Clark was held to eight points, missing six of seven 3-point attempts; last night she scored only three, again missing six of seven from deep. In that mid-May matchup, four Liberty starters scored in double-figures, with Courtney Vandersloot a point away from being the fifth; last night four Lib starters reached double-figures, with Vandersloot again only the loneliest number away from making it a quintet.
None of that is news.
The Fever are the league’s lowest-rated defensive outfit, and even featuring Clark, Aliyah Boston, NaLyssa Smith and Kelsey Mitchell they’re next-to-next-to-last offensively. The Liberty lead the WNBA in offensive rating and are second on the defensive end. One team is built for the now, the other for the next. The universe unfolds as it must, and rarely does anything unfold as inevitably as a team known for reflecting awe over one known for collecting raw.
This was the first of five straight Commissioner’s Cup games for the Liberty, the in-season tournament they won a year ago en route to the franchise’s first-ever championship. As nothing exceeds like excess, winning it again would be perfectly satisfactory. But the horizons of their dreams extend farther out than re-visiting the old neighborhood. New York’s aim is the penthouse; beating the Fever is the equivalent of buying a 10-pack of Bic pens to fill out the rental application. Nobody’s holding their breath at this point.
Clark and Boston both left the game late; Clark would return after seemingly hurting her ear, while Boston injured her ankle after a fall. Indiana was playing the second leg of a back-to-biack, which isn’t why they lost but which undoubtedly impacted the degree of defeat. It always looks fun from the outside, being a young team with a bright future. But that’s like being poor and jobless and envying someone who’s poor but has a paycheck coming in two weeks. It’s hard to keep your eyes on tomorrow when today keeps trying to drag you down. Not that the Fever or the W are struggling financially.
Perhaps Indiana will consider it as a moral victory that no New York player took a cheap shot at Clark, a la Chennedy Carter. None celebrated when she showed she was in pain, a la Angel Reese. And no Liberty moms went on social media to insult our intelligence and tell us to not to trust our eyes and minds, a la Mama Reese. In light of last night’s game being what journalists call “dog-bites-man,” i.e. not news, let’s discuss something actually newsworthy: the campaign some players – not all – are waging against Clark.
There are reasons to resent Clark, reasons that have nothing to do with her personally. She headlines the best-paid, most-popular and most-powerful rookie class possibly in league history. The WNBA isn’t some co-op; it’s owners and investors are all billionaires and multi-multi-multi-multimillionaires. Yet somehow the league couldn’t pull together $25 million for its world-class players to not fly coach, ever, even fining Joe Tsai for doing so out of his own pocket and letting Brittany Griner be accosted by some fuck in Dallas . . . until Clark, Reese, Cameron Brink and others came along. Suddenly the league “found” the money necessary to treat their talent like the professionals they are instead of the Washington Generals.
You don’t think the veterans who’ve paid their dues and built the league into what it’s becoming noticed the sudden shift in policy? Privilege is a helluva drug, one I imagine is like the polio vaccine: obviously awesome for those innoculated, but if you were born before it your worldview is gonna differ. You think this will be the last instance of the new gen reaping what their elders sowed? Doubt it.
Clark is no shrinking violet herself. She leads the league in technical fouls with three and is one of only three players with multiple Ts already, along with Diana Taurasi and Natasha Cloud. Taurasi has played 538 career games, Cloud 257. Clark? 11. She brings an edge that may snag opponents into entanglements more than usual. You can see it in this clip, shortly before Carter shoved her. Just because someone doesn’t deserve what they get doesn’t make them an innocent.
For those who chalk this up to tradition, claiming all hyped rookies go through this, I call bullshit. Was Taurasi targeted similarly when she broke into the W and was an instant star? Did Candace Parker endure obvious cheap shots when she arrived in Los Angeles? Anybody clocked Brink or Rickea Jackson in any of their games so far?
Some say this is only a story because it’s happening with women, that we accept this as normal, even desirable in the NBA. Again: bullshit, unless you’re talking about the bad-faith misogynists and racists who only talk about women’s sports so they can dump on them, a population I won’t waste my time with. But what Clark has experienced isn’t an NBA thing, either.
In the 1990s, NBA rookies were coming out of college and signing deals for years and dollars the league’s best were nowhere near. Glenn Robinson signed a 10-year, $68 million deal after Milwaukee drafted him first in 1994. By year three of his deal, he was making more than everybody on the champion Bulls besides Michael Jordan, and even MJ didn’t make “Glenn Robinson money” until his 13th year in the league. And yet, even with that disparity, even in the ‘90s, when fouls that would earn a suspension today weren’t even called fouls, the vets weren’t shoving the rookies out of bounds. Do you remember LeBron James dealing with this when he broke in? Zion Williamson? Victor Wembanyama? I don’t.
The fact that men did something a certain way for decades doesn’t mean that’s how it should be. A couple months ago the news was celebrating the rocketing cost of women’s Final Four tickets, as if pricing out the majority of fans is somehow a positive for fans. If we’re justifying clearly unjust behavior with “That’s how we’ve always done it,” that’s not history. It’s hazing.
You may have noticed Clark is white. Do I think there’s some prejudice against her for her skin color? For some, 100% yes. Is that fair? Not even a little. Is that the same as generation after generation of entire peoples suffering systemic injustice? Not even a little. Clark is getting shit because of who she is, shit that will likely end sooner than later, and best believe the league will play a part in bringing it to an end. Players like Carter, Reese and the vast, vast majority of WNBA players grow up suffering institutional oppression because of what they are, in terms of race, gender, class and sexuality – and best believe the league will partner with a thousand weapons manufacturers before they commit a single dollar to institutional reparations.
What Clark is enduring is not fair; neither does it rise to the level of an injustice. What her team is enduring is not fun; neither does it rise to the level of newsworthy. A team built for tomorrow lost to one built for today. Next Liberty game is tomorrow at the Sky, who beat them earlier in the season. Whatever happens then, it’ll be news.
