Lengthy earlier than she stepped on a WNBA court docket, followers and members of the media had already anointed Caitlin Clark because the face of the sport.
Her media pull was plain, and she or he deserves loads of credit score for drawing a whole bunch of 1000’s of eyeballs to ladies’s basketball. Nonetheless, she’s simply beginning her journey, and she or he hasn’t earned her stripes as one of many league’s legends.
That is why Los Angeles Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar took offense to Congressman August Pfluger’s letter to WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, by which he claimed Clark was “the face of the WNBA.”
In a current Substack publish, Abdul-Jabbar claimed it was disrespectful to different greats.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar pumps the brakes on Caitlin Clark hype
“My first response to this letter was to verify the calendar and ensure it wasn’t April Fools’ Day,” Abdul-Jabbar wrote. “Don’t get me mistaken: Clark is an excellent, presumably even an awesome, participant. However calling anyone participant the face of the league, absent the form of on-court and cross-platform dominance of a Michael Jordan or a LeBron James, is an insult to an terrible lot of nice gamers.”
Clark’s sharpshooting and playmaking expertise are top-tier, however she hasn’t received something within the league but. Furthermore, veteran stars like A’ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart, Napheesa Collier, Chelsea Grey and Alyssa Thomas additionally deserve reward and recognition for what they’ve achieved.
Clark has been as polarizing as she’s been good for enterprise, and there is a robust probability that she is going to go down as one of many all-time greats. For now, nonetheless, all that rush to crown her could be one of many causes she is probably not as standard amongst her colleagues.
