Caitlin Clark’s toxic cultists are ruining things for the WNBA’s longtime fans

Aliyah Boston was looking forward to her second professional season.

The 2023 WNBA Rookie of the Year made a successful debut as a television analyst for ESPN during the NCAA Women’s Final Four in April, made even sweeter by watching her beloved alma mater, South Carolina, win the national championship after an undefeated season. The wonderful approval that her college and national team head coach Dawn Staley gave to Boston showed how beloved both are within basketball. And after witnessing the Gamecocks cut down the nets by exacting revenge on Caitlin Clark’s Iowa – the team that had ended her collegiate career a year earlier – Boston knew she would soon be playing alongside Clark, with her WNBA- team, the Indiana Fever, in line to take the 22-year-old with the No. 1 overall pick in the upcoming draft.

Fast forward to now. Clark and Boston are indeed teammates, but the Fever started their season with five straight losses before Friday’s narrow win over the Los Angeles Sparks lifted the team’s spirits a bit. But an even more important, unfortunate storyline has emerged around the team. ESPN’s Holly Rowe revealed, before the Fever’s second regular season game against the Connecticut Sun, that Boston said she deleted X from her phone and that TikTok is the only social media platform she now feels safe on. And the reason is the disturbing, toxic response she and other WNBA players have received from Clark’s wild fans.

Before we begin, it’s important to note that this isn’t Clark’s fault — and she did nothing to encourage the abuse of her fellow actors. There is much to celebrate about Clark’s budding superstar and arrival in the best women’s basketball league in the world. Her historic impact on the college game, which led to the highest TV ratings the NCAA women’s tournament has ever had, appears to be carrying over to the WNBA. Attendance and TV ratings for Clark’s preseason and makes his regular season debut with the Fever reaches highlights for the 28-year competition. Although the players would have long fought over charter flights During their collective bargaining negotiations, Clark, who was central to the W’s renewed popularity, undeniably helped usher in that long-awaited change. Clark’s shoe deal with Nike may have led to the league’s best player, A’Ja Wilson, finally getting her own shoes signature shoe.

So Clark has been a good thing for the league and women’s basketball as a whole. Some of her hardcore fans? Not so much.

Some of the tension came from the matchup between Clark and Angel Reese in the 2023 NCAA title game. Reese’s boisterous personality was attacked by Clark fans at the same time they praised their own heroine’s cockiness as “competitiveness”.

And some of Clark’s ardent fans have become completely unbearable.

Everywhere you turn to social media, Clark fans are blaming the Fever’s early-season problems — which were expected — on everyone but her. Disparaging remarks about Boston weight and game, the rest of Clark’s Fever teammates and calls out head coach Christie Sides is fired are constant. Yet those same Clark fans demand no accountability from the point guard when it comes to setting a WNBA debut record of 10 turnovers, her subpar defensive play and her enthusiasm for perimeter shooting, something she had free rein in at Iowa but must scale back until she improves her consistency at the WNBA level. Clark’s occasionally volatile mood, what earned her a rare technical foul last Monday night is glossed over by her rabid supporters who treat her like an infallible celebrity rather than a still-developing professional player.

Furthermore, many Clark fans have never been WNBA fans and show a significant degree of ignorance due to the league’s quarter-century history when it comes to producing great athletes. The arrogance to act as if Clark is the only reason for any interest in the WNBA, or the high level of play the WNBA has long had, or to believe that her fellow professionals are jealous of her are qualities that her ardent supporters pride themselves on have to get rid of. However, that won’t be an easy task, thanks to NBA legends LeBron James and Charles Barkley who only enable the childish antics of the fans.

About the latest episode from his Mind The Game podcast along with JJ Redick, James said Clark is “the reason why a lot of great things are going to happen in the WNBA.” The Lakers even push Clark’s early-season struggles onto his son Bronny’s NBA draft process, claiming both are receiving “a lot of hate and animosity.”

Barkley’s take was even more dire, as the Inside the NBA star claimed her WNBA counterparts were being “petty” to Clark.

“LeBron, you are 100% right, these girls hate Caitlin Clark,” Barkley walked. “I expect men to be petty because we are the most insecure group in the world. You should all be thanking that girl for giving you your private charters, all the money and visibility she brings to the WNBA. Don’t be petty like guys. What she has achieved, give her and her followers credit.”

James and Barkley neglected to specifically name who brought hate to Clark, illustrating how counterproductive their superficial views are to an honest conversation surrounding Clark, whose stumbles are completely understandable for a player in his rookie season. And while James gave Boston a shout-out, he didn’t mention how horrible some of Clark’s feisty loyalists have been to the offense. His apparent ignorance of this makes his comments all the more bleak.

Barkley, meanwhile, shows why Clark’s toxic fans and casual WNBA followers need to educate themselves about the league. Coddling the talented Clark has been insulting and insulting to the great women of the W who, despite all the misogynistic, racist and homophobic attacks they have faced, brought the league to sustainability before her arrival. They’re not just going to turn it into an open layup line and three-point shooting contest for Clark, something no one would expect any other league, men or women, to do. And the first person to admit that would be Clark himself.

Hopefully Clark’s more toxic fans can change before things get really ugly, something that would be a shame in what should be a golden era in women’s basketball. A period when Clark, Boston and everyone who loves the WNBA should be able to celebrate instead of squirm.