Colleen Hopkins

Traveler who loves to be home. Grateful.

[Colleen Hopkins @colhopkins]

How is this even ethical / possible? @CathyEngelbert @wnba @PacersSportsEnt @erinkane @excelsm @RebeccaLobo @espnW @espn @sportsiren @LisaBluder @NancyLieberman @Catchin24 @LisaLeslie @VisitIndy @WNBAComms

[Christine Brennan @cbrennansports]

As controversy swirls over Alyssa Thomas’ one-game suspension, I reached out to WNBPA exec. director Terri Jackson, asking this:

“Is it punishable to put your fist in another player’s throat, or is it not?”

Players’ union spokesman: “The WNBPA respectfully declines comment.”

[Colleen Hopkins @colhopkins]

@espnW @chiney @chiney & @espnw using their platform to blame to the VICTIM is everything that’s wrong with @wnba @CathyEngelbert . I hope CC gets a new agent - takes the fans, TV deals, $$$, & sponsors she’s single handedly responsible for bringing - & starts a new league. They will all follow

[@amuse @amuse]

https://t.co/5tedBik5II

[Colleen Hopkins @colhopkins]

@WNBAComms @CathyEngelbert @wnba - way to not meet the moment. No mention of the knee to the groin, the reckless close out not called, the fact that she was injured because of this or the fact that this is a pattern over 3 years? More needs to be done, not enough. @AmberLCox @erinkane

[Christine Brennan @cbrennansports]

What a photo this is. Alyssa Thomas delivers a fist to the throat of Caitlin Clark. No foul was called. Will the WNBA continue to ignore the way its most marketable, popular and important player is hit and fouled by other players? Or will it finally act — and suspend Thomas?

[Colleen Hopkins @colhopkins]

@howardmegdal @NoaDalzell @busyxb @TheIXSports @howardmegdal not after your article praising @StephanieWhite and insulting “fans”, telling them they’re not smart enough, & to not believe what they can see with their own eyes. 👀 The @IndianaFever @PacersSportsEnt @AmberLCox @Catchin24 @erinkane need to do better

[Robin Lundberg @robinlundberg]

The Fever's collapses will have folks looking directly at the coach
https://t.co/qEzJQeyC0c

[Colleen Hopkins @colhopkins]

@AmberLCox @chiney @AmberLCox - then act like it! You’re letting her get crushed in the media without a peep & have reduced her to a role player in an outdated offense. @erinkane @PacersSportsEnt @StephanieWhite @excelsm

[Colleen Hopkins @colhopkins]

@adukeMN @StephanieWhite & the @IndianaFever need to learn a thing or two or three from Cheryl.

[Colleen Hopkins @colhopkins]

@AnnieCostabile @LD_ChalkTalk @LD_ChalkTalk @AmberLCox did you read this article? It is essentially a hit piece on CC & you are retweeting it??? Clearly the @IndianaFever & @PacersSportsEnt are going to back SW at the expense of CC. Doesn’t make sense. @erinkane @excelsm Team needs a modern offense & defense

[Colleen Hopkins @colhopkins]

@ScottAgness Very sorry to hear this and certainly disappointed with the @IndianaFever @PacersSportsEnt @AmberLCox has handled this situation & how they seem to be doing everything except for standing up publicly for CC who is taking a beating by the @wnba media & dealing w/double standards

[Sports Patriot @SportsPatriotUS]

I have been told countless times over the last 48 hours that I am a conspiracy theorist.

That I do not know basketball.

That I do not understand the WNBA.

And that my articles are too long.

So I wrote this...

I do not believe there is some organized, calculated operation to take down Caitlin Clark.

That would be too simple.

The truth is deeper... and far more damaging.

Caitlin Clark walked into a league that spent nearly three decades convincing itself that its weaknesses were culture.

For years, the WNBA was not a mainstream sports product.

It was a cause.
A talking point.
A subsidized idea.
A league people were told they should support, even when the product on the floor often failed to earn that support from casual fans.

The empty seats were excused.

The financial struggles were excused.

The rough offensive flow was excused.

The poor spacing was excused.

The inconsistent officiating was excused.

The excessive physicality was excused.

The lack of mainstream interest was excused.

And anytime fans questioned the product, the answer was usually the same:

You just do not understand women’s basketball and you're racist.

That was the lie the league told itself for too long.

Because a lot of fans understood basketball perfectly fine.

They just did not like what they were watching.

Too often, the WNBA confused physicality with quality.

It confused survival with success.

It confused being protected with being excellent.

It confused an insulated culture with a strong one.

And then Caitlin Clark arrived.

She did not come in asking people to support the league out of obligation.

She made people want to watch.

That is the difference.

Caitlin brought range, pace, vision, passing angles, court gravity, creativity, and real basketball electricity.

She made regular-season games feel like events.

She made casual fans stop scrolling.

She made people who had ignored the WNBA for years suddenly care about matchups, rotations, officiating, coaching decisions, and league standards.

And that is where the collision happened.

Caitlin Clark exposed the gap between what the WNBA had convinced itself was good enough and what mainstream sports fans actually expect.

Fans want skill.

They want spacing.

They want pace.

They want shooting.

They want smart coaching.

They want fair officiating.

They want stars protected.

They want basketball that looks modern, intelligent, and entertaining.

They did not show up to watch Caitlin get grabbed, held, shoved, bumped, and treated like every possession needs to become a wrestling match in the name of “physicality.”

They also did not show up to watch the basketball constantly pushed into the background while social messaging, league-approved narratives, and cultural lectures compete for center stage.

That is not evolution.

That is a league clinging to old habits because it does not know how to handle the future standing right in front of it.

And Caitlin Clark is the future.

That does not mean she is perfect.

She is not.

That does not mean veterans have no value.

They do.

That does not mean physicality has no place in basketball.

It does.

But there is a difference between physical basketball and ugly basketball.

There is a difference between toughness and fouling.

There is a difference between defensive pressure and mugging someone off the ball.

There is a difference between culture and bad habits that went unchallenged because not enough people were watching.

Caitlin did not create the league’s problems.

She exposed them.

She exposed the officiating.

She exposed the coaching gap.

She exposed the outdated style.

She exposed the resentment toward new fans.

She exposed the discomfort some people have with a player becoming bigger than the system that was supposed to contain her.

And more than anything, she exposed a league that is still trying to force a generational player into an old version of basketball that she has already outgrown.

That is why this does not feel like a conspiracy.

It feels like resistance to change.

The WNBA finally got the player who could push the league into a new era, and too many people inside the ecosystem seem determined to make her prove she belongs in the old one.

That is backwards.

You do not take the most skilled, market-changing player your league has ever seen and ask her to shrink into the culture that failed to attract mainstream fans in the first place.

You build around her.

You modernize around her.

You protect what she represents.

Because she is not just another player.

She is the mirror.

She is showing the league what it has been, what it is, and what it could become if it would stop defending its flaws as tradition.

And the frustrating part is that the next generation is already here.

You can see it with Caitlin.

You can see it with Paige Bueckers.

You can see it with Sonia Citron.

You can see it with Aliyah Boston.

You can see it with JuJu Watkins.

The skill is changing.

The training is better.
The footwork is better.
The shooting is better.
The spacing is better.
The basketball IQ is better.

But too much of the league around them is still operating like nothing has changed.

Same coaching habits.

Same officiating problems.
Same marketing instincts.
Same defensive excuses.
Same resentment toward criticism.
Same belief that the old WNBA culture must be protected, even if it means slowing down the very players who could make the league bigger than it has ever been.

That is the real story.

Caitlin Clark is not being taken down by some secret plan.

She is being resisted by a league that still does not fully understand what she represents.

She represents a better product.

A bigger audience.

A more skilled game.

A more modern game.

A version of women’s basketball that does not need to be sold as charity, activism, obligation, or guilt.

It can be sold as basketball.

Great basketball.

But that requires the league to stop pretending its weaknesses are sacred.

It requires officials to clean up the game.

It requires coaches to modernize.

It requires veterans to adapt.

It requires media voices to stop protecting the old product from honest criticism.

And it requires the WNBA to stop resenting the very fans it spent decades trying to attract.

So no, I do not think there is a coordinated takedown of Caitlin Clark.

I think it is bigger than that.

I think Caitlin walked into a league that spent years convincing itself its flaws were culture.

And now that a generational player has arrived to expose the difference, too many people are trying to humble her instead of learning from her.

That is not Caitlin Clark’s failure.

That is the league refusing to recognize the future.

[Sports Patriot @SportsPatriotUS]

Here is the extended version of Caitlin Clark and Coach Stephanie White addressing their heated exchange the other night.

And once again, Caitlin Clark handles it with absolute PR excellence.

She takes the high road.
She protects the coach.
She protects the locker room.
She refuses to feed the drama.
She gives the professional answer.
She publicly shields people who should be doing a lot more shielding of her.

That is leadership.

To be fair, Coach White does address it too. She repeats the idea that they have each other’s backs and frames the exchange as normal coaching that social media blew out of proportion.

Fine.

But that is not enough anymore.

Caitlin Clark has defended this team, this league, her teammates, and her coaches over and over again with grace, professionalism, and restraint.

Now it is time for the Fever organization and Coach White to defend Caitlin with that same energy.

Not just by saying “we have each other’s backs.”

Show it.

Fight for her when she is getting hammered on the floor.
Challenge questionable calls when they put her in foul trouble.

Praise her greatness without sounding afraid it might offend someone.

Push back when the narrative becomes unfair.
Stop leaving her on an island while she carries the pressure, ratings, ticket sales, criticism, and expectations for the entire franchise.

Caitlin Clark keeps having Indiana’s back.

It is time for Indiana to have hers.

If the Fever protected her half as fiercely as she protects them, a lot of this noise would disappear.

Take up for your damn star.

[Sports Patriot @SportsPatriotUS]

I’m going to say this as calmly as possible:

Watching Caitlin Clark in the WNBA has become genuinely hard to stomach.

Not because she struggles sometimes. Not because she makes mistakes. Not because she gets criticized. That comes with being great.

It’s hard to stomach because it has become obvious that the league, the officials, the media, the players, and even her own organization have all decided that the most important thing is not letting Caitlin Clark become too big.

And that is insane.

This league was handed the most marketable, electric, revenue-generating player women’s basketball has ever seen, and instead of building around the moment, too many people seem obsessed with humbling her.

She gets fouled. Held. Hit. Cheap-shotted. Mocked. Targeted. Then when she reacts like a normal competitor, suddenly everyone wants to analyze her attitude.

No.

Her attitude is not the story.

The story is that a generational player is being treated like a problem by the very league she helped drag into mainstream relevance.

This reminds me of the worst kind of youth coach... the one who sees a special player, feels threatened by her talent, and slowly drains the joy out of her in the name of “teaching humility.”

That is what this looks like.

The freedom she played with at Iowa is disappearing. The fire is still there, but the joy looks damaged. The confidence looks weighed down. She looks like someone constantly fighting the refs, opponents, narratives, coaching decisions, jealousy, and a league culture that should be protecting its golden opportunity instead of resenting it.

And let’s be honest: Stephanie White has not helped.

Benching Caitlin Clark randomly when she is controlling the game tempo, or having your best shooter off the floor in critical game ending minutes when a victory is within reach is basketball malpractice. Limiting her rhythm, downplaying her greatness, benching momentum, and treating her like just another piece instead of the engine is absurd.

You do not take a player who changed the economics of your sport and manage her like you’re afraid her greatness might offend the room.

Nike deserves criticism too. Other players get signature shoes rolled out with urgency, while the biggest draw in women’s basketball is somehow still waiting on that signature shoe. That is not confusing. That is revealing.

Fans are not stupid.

They see the fouls.
They see the double standards.
They see the jealousy.
They see the media resentment.
They see the league benefiting from her popularity while refusing to fully embrace her.
And here is the part the WNBA better understand quickly:
People are not tuning in to watch Caitlin Clark be humbled.
They are tuning in to watch Caitlin Clark be great.
If she walked away tomorrow, the fans would follow her. The sponsors would follow her. The energy would follow her. The high salaries and the charter jets would follow her. And the league would be forced to confront the uncomfortable truth it keeps trying to avoid:

Caitlin Clark did not need the WNBA nearly as much as the WNBA needed Caitlin Clark.

At some point, her family, her agent, and her team need to ask a hard question:

How much longer do you let a league profit from her while allowing the culture around her to beat the spirit out of her?

Because from the outside looking in, this does not look like normal adversity anymore. It looks like abuse.

It looks like a league trying to break the very player who made millions of people care.

https://t.co/AAxFrO46Z4

[Colleen Hopkins @colhopkins]

@CaitlinClark22 @brilewerke Congratulations!

[Colleen Hopkins @colhopkins]

@chloepeterson67 @chloepeterson67 can you try and get to the bottom of what’s really happening with the coach and organization & CC? Seems like they are going out of their way to keep CC down and wondering if this is punishment?

[Colleen Hopkins @colhopkins]

@ScottAgness @ScottAgness will you please ask Steph White pregame if this is punishment? Seems like @IndianaFever @AmberLCox @PatBoylanPacers @StephanieWhite are mismanaging the sports biggest star and the reason fans are engaged with women’s basketball.

[Colleen Hopkins @colhopkins]

@HarryCicma I love that you’ve done so well for yourself @HarryCicma

[David Rumsey @_DavidRumsey]

NEWS: Next week's LPGA event is expanding its Pro-Am coverage around Caitlin Clark's participation.

⛳️ Golf Channel's "Golf Today" will begin 90 min early on Wed. & include live look-ins

🏌️‍♀️Clark will play w/ Nelly Korda & have her warm-up + a mid-round interview live-streamed

[Clark Report @CClarkReport]

“If people are negative it’s because they can’t do what you do”
-Serena Williams praises Caitlin Clark in an interview
#WNBA