Breaking: Nicaragua’s dictator, Daniel Ortega, announced today that his country will no longer hold elections.
Here’s @BernieSanders celebrating his role in advising Ortega after he took power, and praising the very socialist dictator who has now abolished elections.
As a writer, it is becoming increasingly difficult to cover the WNBA with the distance the job requires.
That is not something I say lightly.
Any serious writer understands the responsibility of separating observation from emotion, evidence from outrage, and analysis from personal bias. But Cathy Engelbert and the WNBA are making that separation harder by the day.
The latest example is almost impossible to defend.
The commissioner released a statement that appeared far more concerned with protecting the image of Caitlin Clark’s attacker than addressing what happened to Caitlin Clark herself... a star player who was throat punched, kneed, and trampled in a sequence that had very nothing to do with basketball.
At some point, silence becomes its own statement.
At some point, selective outrage becomes evidence.
And at some point, the refusal to protect the league’s most important player stops looking like incompetence and starts looking intentional.
Caitlin Clark did not enter the WNBA asking to be a symbol. She came to play basketball. She came to compete. She came to join a league filled with players she once admired.
Instead, she has been asked to endure a level of hostility that no professional organization should tolerate.
The physical play is only part of the issue.
The larger failure is institutional.
The league has failed her. The Fever have failed her. Too many players have failed her. And now the commissioner has failed her publicly.
The next few days will be telling.
At a bare minimum, the Fever organization, its coaches, and its players should publicly support Caitlin Clark and make clear that what happened to her should never be normalized.
They do not need to attack anyone.
They do not need to escalate the controversy.
But they do need to stand beside their teammate.
Because if they do not, it becomes increasingly difficult to see a healthy path forward for Clark in a league where she is asked to absorb repeated physical punishment, public minimization, and institutional silence without visible support from the people closest to her professionally.
There is also a human element here that should not be ignored.
Clark is not just a basketball asset.
She is someone’s daughter.
Someone’s sister.
Someone’s friend.
And at some point, the people around her... family, representatives, sponsors, and trusted advisors... may need to ask whether any amount of money, fame, or professional opportunity is worth this level of physical and emotional strain.
Basketball is supposed to be demanding.
It is not supposed to be dehumanizing.
Clark has handled it with grace. That should be acknowledged.
But grace should not be required in the face of repeated mistreatment.
There comes a point when asking a young athlete to keep absorbing the blows... physical, public, and psychological... becomes indefensible.
For months, I dismissed calls for outside intervention as excessive.
I no longer feel that way.
If the WNBA cannot protect its own players fairly, then perhaps it is time for someone outside the league to ask why.
Fans, media members, former players, abuse survivors, and anyone who cares about basic fairness should speak up.
This is no longer just about basketball.
It is about workplace protection.
It is about institutional accountability.
It is about whether a professional league can allow one of its employees to be targeted, minimized, and publicly abandoned without consequence.
The WNBA does not need another statement.
It needs accountability.
And it needs it now.
I don't have a long list of "My Guys" in this draft. I've pushed all my chips in for Keaton Wagler.
He's been overlooked before; it seems like some of that might be happening again. Wagler is a baller. His ability to dribble, pass, and shoot at 6'6" is too enticing for me.
I've had him at 5 on my big board since January, and haven't moved him since.
SPORTSBALL: The WNBA killed its All-Star captain tradition the moment it was clear Caitlin Clark would win the fan vote again. Now it's "honorary GMs" handpicked by the league. The fans voted, the league didn't like the outcome. When they're not trying to kill their golden goose they're slapping her in the face.
Everyone keeps talking about officiating.
I decided to start tracking it.
Every Caitlin Clark game. Every official. Every crew.
📊 Win-loss record.
🏀 Free throws.
🚨 Personal fouls.
🟨 Technical fouls.
🚩 Flagrants.
📋 Discipline history.
The goal isn’t to prove a narrative.
The goal is to replace opinions with data.
This is just Version 1.0.
The database will grow after every game, and every official’s report card will evolve with it.
No cherry-picked clips.
Just the numbers.
#CaitlinClark #IndianaFever #WNBA #SportsAnalytics #Basketball #Data #WNBATwitter @IndianaFever@WNBA@NBA
As a former NBA team physician (76ers) for many years, who has sat through many many games up close, I can say without hesitation that WNBA players and officials have somehow been signaled and cleared to neutralize or even harm (for reasons I cannot fully understand) Caitlin Clark. Hopefully they will wake up and appreciate this league-saving extremely talented once in a generation player. Kind of reminds me of when our amazing Allen Iverson came in to the league. Although I don’t believe anyone set out to harm him, the league & refs initially seemed to do their best to try to neutralize him and (unsuccessfully) reduce his star-power. With Caitlin, it’s gone to a whole new and unacceptable level where I believe actual intentional harm is in play.
@CaitlinClark22@IndianaFever@WNBA
I can’t think of the last time a pro sports league needed a competent commissioner more badly than the WNBA does right now. Maybe the NBA in the early-80s pre-Stern.
"[Caitlin Clark] is not called the same way as everybody else is called. The fist in the throat is crazy. ... It's dangerous."
Fever coach Stephanie White went off on the officials for not calling what she deemed two "cheap shots" on Clark.
https://t.co/UQqeeengDm