Musings of an Old Sportswriter

Some contrarian thoughts on the Pacers' selection of Braden Smith, plus this question: Why is the WNBA trying to get Caitlin Clark killed?

I want to fall head over heels in love with the Pacers’ second-round draft selection of Braden Smith. I mean, of course I do. He’s the ultimate local hero, an overachiever from Westfield High School, an Indiana Mr. Basketball, the college game’s all-time assists leader while with Purdue. We’ve watched him up close and personal for the better part of a decade now, and it’s damned near impossible not to root for the young man.

That said, I have to be honest.

I’m not thrilled the Pacers traded into the second round, selection No. 32, and took the Boilers’ point guard as an eventual replacement for T.J. McConnell.

Here’s my problem (well, I have a lot of problems, but I’m speaking specifically here of the Smith selection):

He’s only 5-foot-10 ¼.

The NBA is not dominated by sub-6 footers, although Jalen Brunson, listed at 6-2, just led the Knicks to the NBA title. I did a little research and what I found was, roughly 25 sub-6-footers have gotten time in the NBA. Most of the names you don’t know; they never really made it at the highest level.

Some, you do: There’s Muggsy Bogues, there’s Nate Robinson, there’s former Celtic Isaiah Thomas, there’s Calvin Murphy, the only sub-6 footer in the Hall of Fame.

That’s not to say you can’t make it in the NBA if you’re below 6 feet. It is to say that the odds are deeply stacked against the league’s Lilliputians. (I speak as a 5-foot-7-inch Lilliputian myself.)

McConnell may be charitably listed at 6-1, but Smith is shorter than him. By quite a bit.

I asked Pacers general manager Chad Buchanan yesterday about Smith’s slight stature (he’s also light, just 166 pounds) and wondered how he would overcome the lack of size in the biggest, strongest league in the world.

“It goes back to his will to win, his ability to lead a team, his ability to get other people shots,” Buchanan said. “I think if you put shot makers around Braden and finishers around Braden, he can get opportunities for those players. His basketball IQ is extremely high…It’s his ability to see things that other players can’t see; that’s a special trait. I think in the second round, you’re looking for a special trait or a special skill…They’re in the second round because they all have something they have to overcome, otherwise they’d probably be in the lottery. For him, it’s going to be his size, but we’re betting on his toughness and his IQ. We’re betting on his will to win. It’s going to be a challenge, but we’ll be there to support him.”

I know, I know: Smith has always been on the small side and he’s consistently overcome the size issue. He overcame it at Westfield, where his jersey is retired and he earned Mr. Basketball honors. He overcame it at Purdue, where he bypassed Duke star Bobby Hurley for the most assists in college basketball history.

But the NBA is a different animal.

In other words, there’s a reason there have been so few sub-6-footers have made it in this league. I’d rank Murphy, the old Rockets’ sharpshooter, as the best of the crop. But the list is not long.

Two reasons the Pacers selected him:

One, they got the hometown discount, Smith willingly accepting a two-way contract that will likely seem him bounce between Indy and Noblesville.

Two, the day will come when McConnell, now 34 years old, will need to be replaced. And who better to guide Smith than McConnell, another pint-sized guard who, unlike Smith, went undrafted and has become the biggest pest in the NBA?

But I keep coming back to these numbers: 5-10 ¼, 166 pounds.

How’s he going to defend in a league filled with oversized, hyper-physical guards? It’s a very small sample size, just one game, but I remember Smith struggling terribly in the national title game against UConn and current Spur Stephon Castle. The NBA is filled with guys just like Castle.

Now, in his defense, he won’t be playing 40 minutes per game the way he did at Purdue. Like McConnell, he can be a super-pest and pick up 94 feet for a couple of minutes at a time.

Again, I’m not being a contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian. But I think there’s a tendency to overstate the abilities of players we see on a regular basis. Smith was a high school and college superstar, a one-of-a-kind player. But now he’s joining the NBA, and that 5-10 ¼ number gives me pause.

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They’re killing the golden goose in the WNBA. Not that Caitlin Clark wants to be viewed as some kind of a victim – I tend to think it kills her to be cast this way – but the truth is the truth.

After a rookie year when she was consistently cheap-shotted, we saw it again this week in the Fever’s second of back-to-back home games against the Phoenix Mercury. First, Alysa Thomas, a woman with a Bill Laimbeer type of reputation, kneed Clark in the groin. Later, she buried her fist in Clark’s neck as Clark lay flat on the floor. No call. Went to the review. No call.

One day later, the WNBA, which seemed wholly ill-prepared to handle Clark’s arrival three years ago, deemed the punch to the throat a Flagrant 2 and worthy of a one-game suspension.

Which didn’t do the Fever any good, the home team losing by a bucket in another game when they scored 100 points and somehow found a way to lose. (The putrid lack of defense is another story altogether.)

In the same game, the Mercury’s Valeriane Ayayi stepped under Clark during a 3-point shot attempt, taking away her landing area. It should have been a foul. It should have been a flagrant. No call. They reviewed. Still no call. As a result, Clark injured her back and eventually was sent back to the locker room for treatment.

I’m not one who routinely bashes officials – I think that’s the easy way out – but the officiating in the WNBA stinks. And it takes a month and a half to execute a review, killing the game’s momentum, and still, they get it wrong all the time. (The league should have help next year when it’s expected they will have an office in Secaucus, N.J. to help with reviews – just like the NBA. That should expedite matters and should bring some level of accountability and maybe, just maybe, consistency.)

There was a reason why Fever coach Stephanie White took almost 40 minutes before she met with the media after the game. She wanted to review the calls. She wanted to pull her message together. She wanted to gather her composure. And then she let loose.

“The fist in the throat is crazy,” she said. “It’s crazy. It’s dangerous,”

And…

“The reckless closeout (by Ayayi) that they actually reviewed and the foot still comes down on top of the defender’s foot that wasn’t upgraded? I don’t know because that’s like a do-over on a test. How do you screw it up again?”

And…

“You’re coming in here aware of what happened two nights ago (when things got chippy) and that shit still happens? Absolutely unacceptable.”

And…

“We spent all offseason looking at officiating. And I still say the one thing that we keep asking for is consistency. She is not called the same way everybody else is called.”

As for the commissioner, Cathy Engelbert, she strikes me as being completely clueless and ill-prepared for the league’s close-up. From the moment Clark landed in the W, the league has had no plan for how to handle her impact. I still remember when Clark and the Fever flew commercial to a pre-season game in Dallas her rookie year, at which point she was accosted by media and paparazzi in the airport. It was only then that the league figured out it was time to fly privately.

I’m not suggesting that other players are immune from the rough stuff, nor am I saying that Clark deserves special treatment. What she deserves is fairness. What she deserves is some accountability from a league that is supposed to be celebrating her game-changing arrival, and not trying to get her killed. I don’t know it’s jealousy or something more sinister, but Clark has taken a beating since the moment she arrived, harkening all the way back to the Chennedy Carter incident.

I’ve heard people say she’s hard to officiate, like she’s Zach Edey or something.

I don’t know, a fist to the throat?

That seems pretty simple and straightforward, doesn’t it?