Caitlin Clark enters WNBA playoffs as a baller and reluctant icon

Earlier this month, Caitlin Clark was up late doing what any normal hoops head would do on a Tuesday night. Throughout her tremendous and tumultuous rookie season in the WNBA, Clark has tried to maintain that simplicity. For fans around the WNBA, she’s the ignition to the Indiana Fever’s renaissance and the raging fire behind the league’s swell in attendance this season. For media outlets, she’s the clickbait cash cow, and for her adoring fans, she’s Taylor Swift in basketball shorts. Now she’s on the eve of her first playoff appearance, after helping her franchise snap a postseason drought that lasted eight seasons. Game 1 against the Connecticut Sun will surely feature unprecedented ratings, even against the backdrop of an NFL Sunday. As long as Clark’s team keeps on playing, the attention will mount. She will be whatever the day’s narrative needs her to be: the reason “everyone watches women’s sports” or the reason this WNBA season was so taxing and draining for those who like their basketball without Fox News weighing in. Though she may not be able to control how others view her, she’s learning to grow. Advertisement “I feel very lucky and fortunate to be able to play basketball at the highest level,” Clark said Thursday night in Washington. “The things that I’m most proud of is definitely my mentality and my approach every single day, and I think that can take you a long way. It’s how you feel about yourself and the people in your locker room that really matter.” I witnessed the bookend to Clark’s season, watching her rookie debut (coincidentally, against the same Sun team the Fever will face in the best-of-three series), as well as in the regular season finale. By Thursday night, long gone was the shaky first-year player who committed 10 turnovers at Mohegan Sun Arena. Instead, the player in Capital One Arena resembled the one who emerged after the Olympic break much more in sync with her teammates and in control of the game. Clark finished with three against the Washington Mystics to go along with eight assists, but she looked like an old pro while forcing a turnover against an eight-year WNBA veteran. In the second quarter, when Shatori Walker-Kimbrough tried to use a slender arm to push Clark out of her way, Clark absorbed the contact by flailing back. Then to really sell it, Clark threw an extra and unnecessary flinch. However the stretch between her debut and finale, that’s when the evolution happened. Advertisement In college, she showed herself to be relaxed and confident while representing the women’s game and heralding those who came before. After weeks of divisive commentary that benefited Clark but vilified her colleagues, the league office could have done something to silence the nastiness. In June, veteran reporter Jim Trotter asked her pointed questions about how she felt about her name being used in culture wars, and, frankly, Clark’s answer was lacking. “Basketball’s my job,” Clark said in part. “Everything on the outside, I can’t control that, so I’m not going to spend time thinking about that.” Advertisement Trotter pressed on, asking whether she was “bothered” by the weaponization of her name. No, I don’t see it. That’s not where my focus is.” It wasn’t until later that same day when Clark attempted to clean up her comments; she appeared better prepared for a similar question from a different reporter: “Yeah, I think it’s disappointing. In Clark’s response, however, she tried to align herself with her progressive peers rather than those trying to separate her as their superior. By July and August, Clark was back doing what she does best: reimagining the game. She kept recording more and more assists and became the league’s single-season leader, then broke the rookie record for threes and points. Advertisement On Instagram, Clark liked Swift’s post that was in favor of Harris for president, and she suddenly found herself back in the swirl of noise and attention. Her own page came under siege by disappointed Clarkies (“just threw away my jersey #TRUMP2024,” one commenter posted). Though Clark did not reveal whether she intended her like to be an endorsement of Harris, she echoed messaging from the league and players union on the importance of voting. “I have this amazing platform, so I think the biggest thing would be just to encourage people to register to vote,” she said earlier in September. “That’s the biggest thing I can do with the platform that I have, and that’s the same thing Taylor did.” This same month, when she didn’t have to answer questions from a dais before games or scroll through the cesspool that became her comment section, she was content at home. Advertisement “I remember the game, and honestly, like, I didn’t have much of a reaction,” Clark recalled. “Came to work the next day, and everybody was definitely happy, but we still had … this whole month still to play.” – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2024/09/21/caitlin-clark-wnba-playoffs/