Caitlin Clark entered the WNBA in 2024 as one of the league’s most promising players. She lived up to that hype, helping boost merch and ticket sales and viewership beyond the million-mark. But there is also a dark side to that reality. In the three seasons she has played so far, almost every incident involving the Indiana Fever star has extended beyond the court. And according to Dan Le Batard, that’s an unfair burden for any player to carry.
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“Caitlin Clark is now a political figure. Whatever her dreams were about being a basketball player, (she) could not have imagined, they’re going to be talking about my technical fouls all the time,” he said on the latest episode of The Dan Le Batard Show.
“The amount of pressure and stress we are putting on all of these people, all of these people in sports… I don’t want to make Caitlin Clark sound like a victim. It just sucks to see her reach her dreams and have it not feel good.”
Co-host and analyst Amin Elhassan agreed, saying, “I think the part that’s unfair to her, to Angel Reese, to all of them is that they become avatars in a proxy war between people who don’t give a s*** about their sport,” Elhassan said.
Whether it has been debates over physical play, officiating, or broader cultural discussions, many of the league’s biggest storylines have ended up revolving around the CC despite her rarely engaging in those conversations publicly.
Take the 2026 season as an example. Even before this season began, most of the conversation around her was dominated by her fractured relationship with head coach Stephanie White.
Then came the June 24 Alyssa Thomas incident, where Thomas making hard contact with Clark’s throat wasn’t called during the game. Despite the WNBA upgrading it to a flagrant foul 2 after a review, Thomas received immense backlash and threats on social media.
That started a debate about protecting players that immediately spiraled out of control. In fact, 11 members of the Republican Study Committee (RSC) even publicly announced that they had sent a letter to Commissioner Cathy Engelbert urging her to protect her players.
And that’s exactly why even NBA commissioner Adam Silver said, “she’s become a bit of a political football in this country, and I think it’s incredibly unfair to her.”
Meanwhile, Caitlin Clark is tired of this discourse and just wants to focus on playing basketball.
“It’s emotionally exhausting. It’s draining. It makes your shoulders tense. Because people don’t want to talk about the basketball, they just wanna stir it up and make something else,” Clark told ESPN ahead of the All-Star Game.
That being said, with the conversation around Clark and player safety still raging on, it doesn’t seem like this discourse will die down any time soon.