Race, celebrity and greatness: Is Caitlin Clark v Angel Reese really the WNBA’s Magic v Bird?
IIn the 1970s, the NBA sputtered. Playoff matches were on tape delay. Many league teams were in debt, baseball was still distinctly the American game, and lesser-known small-market franchises were winning titles. But then the influx of talent changed the entire operation. In the 1979-80 NBA season, rookies Magic Johnson and Larry Bird exploded onto the scene with the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics, respectively. But even then, the two were known celebrities, and so was their budding rivalry. It all started a year earlier in college. In the 1979 NCAA title game, Johnson’s Michigan State team defeated Bird’s Indiana State in what remains the most watched game. basketball game ever in the U.S. It was a match that pitted the flash and charisma of Magic against the quiet genius of Bird. Two skilled passers who make their teams better. 45 years later, history repeats itself, this time with Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark of the WNBA. Just ask Magic himself.
“Larry and I have increased the overall popularity of the NBA,” Johnson wrote at X on Monday. “The Lakers and Celtics sold out arenas across the league and increased television viewership exponentially. The higher ratings led to the NBA signing significantly larger TV contracts, which then led to higher salaries for the players. Caitlin and Angel are now doing the same thing: selling out arenas and increasing viewership.”
The parallels between the Magic/Bird and Reese/Clark rivalries are numerous, starting with a matchup in the NCAA championship round. Reese and Clark faced off in the title game in 2023 when the latter’s LSU Tigers played the latter’s Iowa Hawkeyes. The event also broke viewing records, becoming the most watched women’s college basketball ever, with nearly 10 million pairs of eyes. But unlike Magic and Bird’s match, the one between Reese and Clark featured some excellent trash talk. Reese taunted Clark, who became the NCAA’s highest-ever scoring player in 2024, and pointed at her finger to let Clark know who got the championship ring. Since then, the two have become must-see TV on their own, but especially when paired together.
“They’ve taken women’s basketball by storm, and with TV deals looming,” Magic added on X, “the WNBA is now in a position to negotiate bigger TV contracts and raise salaries for all of its talented players.” (Not only that, but the Las Vegas Aces, with star A’ja Wilson, are games sold out left and right. The rising tide lifts all boats.)
On Sunday, Reese and Clark faced off in the WNBA for their final head-to-head battle, as Clark’s Indiana Fever fell to Reese’s Chicago Sky on the road, 88-87. Clark scored seventeen points, six rebounds and thirteen assists. But Reese had the bigger stat line, scoring 25 points with 16 rebounds and continuing her streak consecutive double-doubles. After the match, Reese, whose team trailed by 15 points before staging an electrifying comeback, praised her strength and confidence, saying:I am a dog. You can’t learn that.” Their two teams next play on August 30, in what could be a matchup to determine playoff implications.
“I think rivalries are great in sports,” Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman, a former WNBA player, coach and manager, told The Guardian. “Larry and Magic, [Tom] Brady and [Peyton] Manning, Martina [Navratilova] and Chris [Evert] – Rivalry is healthy and creates excitement among the fans. Why not look at these two players who have immense talent and a huge fan base? There’s nothing wrong with it.”
Lieberman, who is named after an NCAA award for nation’s best point guard, which Clark won multiple times, was such a good player in her day that she was known as “Lady Magic.” When the WNBA’s inaugural season began in 1997, the Brooklyn-born baller was the league’s oldest player at age 39, and in 2008, at age 50, she signed a contract to play with the Detroit Shock. All of this is to say, she’s seen a thing or two in basketball. And with that experienced eye, she says she agrees with Johnson’s assessment of the Reese-Clark rivalry.
“Any point anyone can throw at it, they’ve got it,” Lieberman says. “From race, from playing against each other in college, being about the same age and playing in the ‘W’ – oh my God, this is going to be 15-18 years of fun. They are so good.”
Like Clark and Reese, Magic and Bird played different positions, meaning they rarely guarded each other on the court. Both rivalries are really about the players’ overall impact on the game and society at large. And when it came to Magic and Bird, their rivalry seemed preordained. Magic, with his million-dollar smile, played in a city full of movie stars. Bird, with his quiet demeanor, played a continent away in the slightly less flashy Boston.
We captured the imagination of everyone in America,” Johnson once said of the rivalry. “People wanted to see us play against each other… If you like competition, you want to play against the best, and that’s what we wanted to do.”
But even though Reese and Clark’s teams are located in the Midwest (Reese plays in the city that Michael Jordan made famous and Clark plays in Bird’s home state), their rivalry has parallels. Bird and Magic became very wealthy men, partly because of their playing skills and partly because of the fame that fueled their rivalry. And while Reese and Clark don’t earn nearly the salaries that Magic and Bird pulled in — both women are being paid less than $75,000 by their teams this season — they have signed lucrative endorsement deals. Clark and Reese made millions from endorsements while you are still in collegeand those amounts have now only increased: Clark is said to have signed a $28 million contract with Nike.
And while American commerce has benefited all four players, there are other aspects of the US that have benefited as well even more sinister consequences for their lives. Both rivalries pit a black player against a white player, something that has inevitably been magnified and weaponized by others in a country rife with racial divisions. And the players were and are forced to comment on that. Magic and Bird refused to inflame these tensionsand there are signs that Reese and Clark want nothing to do with it either. “People should not be using my name to push those agendas. It’s disappointing. It’s not acceptable,” Clark said earlier this month.
These comments came after many black and gay players in the WNBA were abused on social media by those who believe Clark is being targeted because of her race (the reality is much more nuanced). Clark had initially remained silent before Connecticut Sun guard DiJonai Carrington, who is black, addressed her on X: “Dawg. It’s insane that anyone doesn’t care that their name is used to justify racism, bigotry, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia and its intersectionality. We all see the sh*t. We all have a platform. We all have a voice and they all carry weight. Silence is a luxury.”
While people also turned Magic and Bird’s skin color into weapons, Lieberman believes the situation is more intense for Clark and Reese.
“Martina and Chris, Larry and Magic,” says Lieberman, “they didn’t have to deal with social media. I think it’s really harder [Angel and Caitlin]. Complete strangers have an opinion and are apparently entitled to it. You have to block out the noise of the people who influence your life. That doesn’t mean you don’t appreciate fans, but you should also stay true to your own values. Most fans have never been in your shoes.”
Xavier McDaniel, who played against Magic and Bird in the late 1980s, also sees similarities.
“[Clark and Reese remind me of Magic and Bird] a bit because one is black and the other white. That’s what’s intriguing about it, I think,” he says. “But I know the athletes don’t look at it that way. They compete and do their best. Especially when you listen to some of the things Caitlin Clark says, like, “I’m just competing.”
And while Reese and Clark have stressed that they have no personal quarrel with each other, they’re not exactly good friends. That could change. Johnson said he bonded with Bird when they shot a commercial together in 1985, when their playing careers were in full swing.
“Larry and I went to lunch, and I’m telling you, we found out we are so much alike,” Johnson said of that meeting. “We’re both from the Midwest, we grew up poor, our families [are] everything to us, basketball is everything to us. So that changed my whole perspective on Larry Bird.”
Lieberman expects big things from the Clark-Reese rivalry, even if they don’t get as close as Magic and Bird. But no one wins a championship alone. Johnson played with hall of famers like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Cooper and James Worthy. While Bird donned his sneakers alongside his own collection of all-time greats: Kevin McHale, Robert Parish and Dennis Johnson. Hall of Famers were everywhere in those Celtic-Lakers games. As a result, the two met in the NBA Finals three times and at least one of their franchises played in every championship series in the 1980s. After Magic and Bird arrived, the NBA stopped postponing Finals games. And while Bird won Rookie of the Year that first season, it was Johnson who took home a title and the Finals MVP award in 1980.
“Both [Reese and Clark’s teams] “They’re right in the playoff picture,” Lieberman said. “So anything is possible. It would be incredible if they both made the playoffs in their first year. But it’s not just about them. It’s the TV highlights, but winning a championship isn’t just going to be about them. It’s going to be about their teammates and how hard they can play together and grow.”