Emmanuel Acho makes stunning Caitlin Clark WNBA claim
· Yahoo Sports
The Caitlin Clark discourse has reached a new level. Emmanuel Acho’s scalding-hot take on the WNBA’s biggest and most controversial star requires us to move the needle closer to midnight and the warnings closer to DEFCON 2.
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After an extremely eventful week for Clark and the discussions that follow her everywhere, Acho surveyed the landscape and surmised that the basketball league could benefit from some addition by subtraction.
Acho’s Caitlin Clark comments
“The W at this juncture at time would be better without Caitlin Clark because she is a bigger distraction than she is an additive,” Acho claimed on his “Speakeasy” podcast. “Caitlin Clark has gotten the WNBA over the necessary threshold they needed. Now people are watching. Now we realize there’s talent in the W, talent that’s actually even greater than Caitlin Clark … Caitlin got the necessary eyes there but now that they’re there we don’t necessarily need her anymore. Caitlin did what only Caitlin could do and we don’t necessarily need her to do any more.”
That’s a bold claim. Let me offer one of my own. If Clark were somehow not in the WNBA’s future, every executive and stakeholder would feel a sheer panic down to their core. And that alone suggests it may not be an accurate assessement.
Acho went on to identify the problem.
“Now you’re saying that the WNBA needs to be cognizant of where they put Clark on posters,” he said. “The WNBA and the officials need to author the rules for Caitlin Clark. The WNBA and opposing players need to treat Caitlin Clark more gently. Caitlin Clark’s coach needs to be cognizant of how she talks to her in public because it’s going to look like there’s an issue. Unless we can take off our gloves for Caitlin Clark and stop trying to act like she’s a Messiah, the WNBA could and would be better off without Caitlin Clark—at least without this version of everybody coddling and caressing and catering to Caitlin Clark.”
Sports debate only exists because people can have different perspectives. I’ll admit that I haven’t studied every single data point when it comes to the Clark conversations. Yet it seems flat-out wrong to suggest that anyone is suggesting new rules be put in place and for the Fever star to be given preferential treatment. Nor does it seem accurate to say Clark came into the NBA and has had everyone bend over backwards in deference. In fact, one could argue that the opposite is true and there’s been an unusual resistance to embrace and effectively market what she brings to the league.
That’s not to suggest the whining about her unfair treatment isn’t a bit annoying, because it can be. The truth is that it really doesn’t matter if a person likes or dislikes Clark. It doesn’t matter whether a fan believes she’s been given the keys to do whatever she wants or is being held down from soaring as high as she should.
Clark drives conversation
Either way people are talking about her. And this controversy is good for the WNBA. The same way it has been good for every sports league that has ever existed. For as silly as it is to suggest Clark should take her talents elsewhere, it’s even sillier to suggest the league would secretly want that to happen.
Things like this require a simple gut check. In this case, it simply cannot be.
There’s a bit of a hamster wheel effect going on here. Clark is a tremendous topic for those in content because there’s a clear incentive to frame her at the center. Drumming up as much tension and friction as possible accelerates things. Though her somewhat bumpy start to a professional career has been interesting to observe, one can pause for a minute and think long and hard about the level of strain here. Do that for a second and it’s easy to realize leagues throughout time have been just fine with bigger distractions. Ones that were doing downright objectionable things and possessed a sliver of Clark’s talent. Those situations always just got figured out along the way.
Acho tries to chart out whether Clark is a bigger distraction and additive. It would be better to weigh distraction vs. attraction. Her distraction might be an attraction. See, it’s complicated.
What remains unclear to me is what is preventing Clark to simply fit into the framework of the WNBA. There’s plenty of room for fans to pick and choose who and what they care about. Numbers show they care very much about Clark but there’s no reason for that to be at the detriment of the league.