WNBA Indiana Fever star rookie Caitlin Clark got slammed hard again Wednesday night when the Washington Mystics six-foot-five, 235-lbs center Stefanie Dolson whacked the hell out of her left arm.
Clark could be seen shouting at the refs immediately after the foul play. Whether Dolson intentionally fouled Clark or not — and I'm willing to believe that it was just a block gone wrong if that's what other videos show — the refs somehow missed it.
I'd like to see the hit from another angle but, from the video we do have, it looks like Dolson was going for Clark's arm instead of the ball. Some say that Dolson also hit Clark in the head but I didn't notice anything like that.
See and judge for yourself.
@dpinsen 'Chief' from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, taking it out on Clark
— DosXXMachina (@DuosEquis) June 20, 2024
Fury as Caitlin Clark suffers brutal arm slash by 6ft5in, 235-pound rival - as fears grow for safety of WNBA star after officials failed to award 'blatant foul' pic.twitter.com/LgnDvnCv95
That clip is courtesy of X user DosXXMachina and, if I'm being frank here, that might be the greatest screen name in history. And when he referred to Dolson as "Chief" from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next," I laughed like I was in middle school again.
Kind? No. Fair? Oh, yes — DosXX nailed the reference.
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It seems like just a couple of weeks ago [Steve, it was just a couple of weeks ago —Editor] I asked if the Indiana Fever were even a team, judging by how Clark's teammates failed to rally to her defense after an even more egregious foul by the Chicago Sky's Chennedy Carter. But going by the Fever's improved performance since then, it looks like a real team might be coming together.
That's nice but it might not be enough to combat what certainly looks to me like vicious straight, white bias in the WNBA.
Last month, when Clark's on-court problems were becoming too obvious to ignore, PJ Media's own Matt Margolis reported that she was being targeted for being "straight, white, and not from the inner city" in a cliquish league where such things make someone a distinct minority.
It's been a few years now, but Minnesota Lynx point guard Candice Wiggins described playing in the WNBA as "toxic," and was the reason she abruptly retired at age 29 in 2017. “Me being heterosexual and straight, and being vocal in my identity as a straight woman was huge,” Wiggins told the San Diego Union-Tribune at the time. “I would say 98 percent of the women in the WNBA are gay women. It was a conformist type of place. There was a whole different set of rules they (the other players) could apply.
That toxicity expresses itself in all kinds of ways, on and off the court — beyond the occasional egregious foul.
"So why is Caitlin Clark averaging 5.5 turnovers a game?" my old X acquaintance Ted Frank asked on Wednesday. "Does she throw errant passes, or is she just the victim of uncalled hand-checks and being forced to cough up the ball?"
That's a fair question. And what makes it fair is the unquestionably unfair treatment Clark has been getting on and off the basketball court.
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