David Burnett Sr

Author of Sports Sense: a common sense look at sports and its place in our society

[David Burnett Sr @SportsSense]

Do with this fact what you will: Most WNBA teams regularly practice with and against men. It has been standard workout regimen throughout the league since the WNBA was founded 30 years ago.

[David Burnett Sr @SportsSense]

At what point will Caitlin Clark stop trying to force passes in the paint to teammates who can’t catch the ball? She’s close enough to the basket to lay the ball up herself. Sometimes it seems that she’s trying to pad her assist numbers. She’s got the green light - she needs to use it dammit!

[David Burnett Sr @SportsSense]

@jasonwhitlock It’s not a real issue. Everyone worrying about trans players competing in women’s sports is being misled. There is not and never has been a title wave of trans-women over running and infiltrating women sports. This is simply father for the phony culture wars.

[David Burnett Sr @SportsSense]

A lot of so‑called experts have been weighing in on the “health” of the WNBA as it hits 30 years. Most of those takes are surface‑level — no depth, no historical perspective, and definitely no intellectual honesty. So I decided to do some actual research. Specifically, I looked at what the NBA was doing in its own 30th season back in 1975–76. If we’re going to talk about the WNBA’s trajectory, we should at least understand the NBA’s reality at the same milestone.

The NBA’s 30th season ran from October 23, 1975 to June 6, 1976, with 18 teams and games airing on CBS. Boston beat Phoenix 4–2 for its 13th title, Jo Jo White took home Finals MVP, and Kareem Abdul‑Jabbar won league MVP even though the Lakers missed the playoffs — still the only time that’s ever happened.

Economically, the league was just crawling out of its dark era. Kareem was the highest‑paid player at $650,000. The next tier sat around $250k–$325k. The average salary hovered near $130,000 — a jump from about $35,000 just five years earlier. Minimum scale had hit $30,000 in the late ’60s and wouldn’t reach $75,000 until the mid‑’80s, so bottom‑tier roster guys were making roughly $25k–$40k, with rookies earning $15k–$20k.

Attendance? Roughly 8,000 a night. Half‑full arenas were normal. Atlanta averaged 5,556 at home. The New Orleans Jazz doubled their crowd to 12,519 only after moving into the Superdome.

And television? CBS was still tape‑delaying weeknight playoff games to 11:30 p.m. That practice didn’t end until Game 3 of the 1986 Western Conference Finals. So the entire 1975–76 season — the NBA’s 30th — existed fully in the tape‑delay era, with only the Finals guaranteed to air live.

[David Burnett Sr @SportsSense]

@jakequery I think the pressure of everything may be reaching a dangerous point for Caitlin. Her actions including her body language suggest signs of serious emotional distress. Last night alarmed me. I’m a Caitlin fan and want her and the Fever to succeed, but I believe the grievances against her and outsized expectations her fans have for her may be too much.

[David Burnett Sr @SportsSense]

It’s becoming clearer every day that Caitlin Clark isn’t just a basketball story — she’s a Trojan horse, a delivery system for a whole treasure chest of American anxieties. Good ones, bad ones, and some that smell like they’ve been left in the sun.

Because suddenly, through Caitlin Clark, people feel like they’ve got permission to take shots at the WNBA — and not basketball shots. I mean cultural shots. Social shots. Shots at women, shots at lesbians, shots at Black women. And they get to do it under the protective umbrella of “I’m just defending this endangered straight white girl in a league full of Black lesbians.” That’s the disguise. That’s the costume. That’s the horse.

And it’s wild, because we just lived through this same playbook with trans women. Statistically tiny group — barely a rounding error — but the country inflated it like it was COVID. “Trans women are everywhere! They’re taking over!” No they weren’t. But that panic swung an election. It became a political Swiss Army knife. And now the same energy is being repurposed: “Let’s talk about Caitlin Clark so we can talk about everything else we’re actually mad about.”

And suddenly the WNBA is “poorly run.” Why? Because a star showed up? Because a star got popular? The league’s been around for decades. Cathy Engelbert’s been running it for seven years. It wasn’t “poorly run” until America discovered a white girl who shoots from the logo.

And look — Caitlin Clark is great. She’s legitimately great. But she didn’t descend from the heavens. She was one of many great college players. She just happened to score more than anybody else. That’s it. That’s the whole origin story.

But scoring the most doesn’t automatically make you the face of the sport. Pete Maravich scored more points than anybody in college history. Did he become the symbol of basketball? No. It was Kareem. It was always going to be Kareem. Pete was dazzling, but he was dazzling on losing teams. He was a stylistic icon, not the center of the basketball universe.

And that’s what’s happening now. Caitlin Clark is being turned into a symbol — not by the league, not by the players — but by the culture. She’s the horse. And inside the horse? All the stuff people really want to talk about but don’t want to say out loud.

That’s the game. That’s the play. And we’re watching it unfold in real time.

[David Burnett Sr @SportsSense]

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[David Burnett Sr @SportsSense]

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[David Burnett Sr @SportsSense]

@imane_assi @jakequery She’s gotta hit more shots.

[David Burnett Sr @SportsSense]

@jakequery why is it in the whole Caitlin Clark “crisis” that no one including yourself is willing to point out the elephant in the room? And that is for the great three-point shooter that she is, Caitlin Clark is not even in the top 20 or 30 in three-point shooting percentage this season. Her whole mystique is based on shooting from the logo and other long range shots. The problems with Caitlin Clark would go away immediately if she was hitting a higher percentage of her shots and you don’t even talk about that. I’m a Caitlin Clark fan a big fan, but I’m not blind. The Fieldhouse is not sold out anymore and she’s not packing the arenas of other teams anymore.

[David Burnett Sr @SportsSense]

Thanks Jake for mentioning this on your show

[David Burnett Sr @SportsSense]

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[David Burnett Sr @SportsSense]

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[David Burnett Sr @SportsSense]

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[David Burnett Sr @SportsSense]

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