Former WNBA star-turned-commentator Monica McNutt delivered the perfect summation of the controversy surrounding Caitlin Clark’s arrival to the league on The Daily Show this week.
McNutt joined returned part-time host Jon Stewart to discuss the fervor surrounding Clark’s WNBA debut, particularly McNutt’s appearance on ESPN’s First Take that went viral where she questioned the program’s commitment to covering women’s basketball in the past.
As Stewart inquired about the whole situation, McNutt did an excellent job of tying the entire Clark discourse with a bow while still highlighting the need for the conversation to continue to span past just one player.
“While Caitlin is fantastic and I think she’s going to have an incredible career in the WNBA, there were women who were worthy of coverage prior to her, and I will not be silenced when it comes to that,” McNutt told Stewart about her approach to covering the league since Clark’s debut.
"While Caitlin is fantastic and I think she's going to have an incredible career in the WNBA, there were women who were worthy of coverage prior to her, and I will not be silenced when it comes to that." – @McNuttMonica sets the record straight on the WNBA and Caitlin Clark pic.twitter.com/s7Kc3nHVv7
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) June 11, 2024
The distillation is this: Clark has done absolutely nothing to spark any of the discourse surrounding her arrival. She’s saying the right things, doing the best she can on the court and paving a promising future for herself and the Indiana Fever.
Outside of one avoidable hard foul that really wasn’t that big of a deal, the rest of the WNBA is treating her like they would a generational talent. The highly qualified women who cover the league are voicing the strongest opinions on the subject, too. It’s just the rest of the uninformed noise that makes it so occasionally intolerable.
We’d do well to keep listening to people like McNutt and judging Clark and the rest of the WNBA’s talented veterans fairly for what they do in games.
