Mina Kimes: The Polarization Of Caitlin Clark ‘Seems Perfectly Calibrated To P— Off Everybody’

Caitlin Clark is the greatest scorer in college basketball history. Because of that she was the number one overall pick in the WNBA Draft.

She brings in more fans than any female basketball player ever has and helps draw some of the highest TV ratings college basketball and the WNBA have ever seen.

She handles herself amazingly well for her age and status and is not a controversial person or player.

She has been instrumental, through her success and personality, in raising the profiles of other female basketball players and getting them perks that they may not have otherwise received.

These are all very good things.

And yet, despite all of that and through no fault of her own, Caitlin Clark has somehow become a polarizing figure.

Why?

That’s a question ESPN’s Mina Kimes attempted to address this week on Pablo Torres Finds Out.

“Everybody involved in this story feels aggrieved,” Kimes said. “And if you really parse it out, different parties all have cases to be made for, not necessarily a sense of being aggrieved or what not, some are legitimate cases, but rather for their viewpoint and why it’s being overlooked in some way.

“The way I’ve seen this, it appears to me to be that there’s two debates going on at the same time one is whether or not Caitlin Clark is being treated differently in the [WNBA] from other rookies, from other stars, and the reasons for that. And then the other debate is who is responsible for the renewed attention on WNBA?

“These things are obviously related or some people believe they’re more related than others and both of those debates, her treatment and also what she’s responsible for in terms of like, the attention and who is talking about her and why we’re talking about her, both of those things have very intense racial overtones I would say, not even undertones.

“And I think because of that it’s very, very hard for all the people arguing around each other to meet eye to eye because, or I guess to engage on this issue or to find middle ground, because it feels like everybody’s kind of talking over each other to make their case and all of these different cases have some legitimacy to them.”

Mina Kimes then tried to distill the conversation down to that one moment when Caitlin Clark was cheap-shotted by Chennedy Carter in the Fever’s game against the Sky and then Angel Reese cheered her teammate after the fact.

“My point is, everybody’s looking at this one incident and then using it to paint a broad brush in whatever direction they want to go with,” Kimes said. “You say Caitlin Clark gets the benefit of her identity from a marketing promotion standpoint. And people say that by leading with that, you’re discounting her skills as a basketball player. But then if you don’t acknowledge it, people correctly will say, ‘Well, you’re ignoring something that is just fundamentally true.’ I guess my point is everybody is right?

“It seems perfectly calibrated to piss off everybody because there are so many things that are true at once. If you’re like me, and you get that ‘For You’ page, it’s not even just like here’s the clip. I’m saying I’m being fed outrage on both sides. And whoever you are, if your consumption of that is not just the clip or whatever, or the entire game, but rather a tweet saying, ‘Look at these thugs.’ Or conversely, a tweet saying, ‘Oh, everyone’s gonna protect this [expletive] white girl, whatever.’ Of course, you’re going to be inflamed.”

Case in point…

“And I think that’s the problem,” Kimes continued. “I mean, that’s one of the many problems with this story, that’s already, as we’ve been talking about, calibrated to anger a lot of people is the consumption of it is through the lens of these extreme reactions, which are only stoking. Like, a lot of people are reacting to the reactions at this point and not the actual stuff that’s happening.”