The WNBA's gatekeepers are out in force, guarding their turf

Just because you don't have deep institutional knowledge of women's basketball doesn't mean you shouldn't share your thoughts on big issues, like Chennedy Carter shoulder-checking Caitlin Clark.

The WNBA gatekeepers are out in force.

See, I’m not supposed to write about the WNBA and Caitlin Clark specifically because I haven’t paid attention to our local WNBA franchise since around 2017, when Tamika Catchings was still here and the Fever were an eternal playoff team. What’s worse is, I’m – checks notes – a guy, and a guy who hasn’t covered the WNBA regularly is ill-equipped to have a coherent take on Chennedy Carter’s shoulder check on Clark and women’s basketball in general.

Bull…

Shit.

I’ve read several think pieces on this subject, from esteemed writers like Jemele Hill and Lyndsey D’Arcangelo and the general sense I get is, “If you haven’t been paying attention to the `W’ since its inception, you don’t have the institutional knowledge necessary to put issues like the Clark foul in proper perspective.”

Here’s how Hill, a wildly talented journalist, started her most recent piece in The Atlantic.

“As a female journalist who has covered women’s sports for years, I have long dreamed of the day that female athletes would demand the level of media attention traditionally reserved for me.

Now that day is finally here – and it’s a lot less satisfying than I imagined.

The arrival of a dynamite WNBA rookie class, headlined by the sensational Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, has prompted an explosion of coverage of women’s basketball. But – and perhaps I should have anticipated this – the surge in popularity has come at a cost. Ill-informed male sports analysts are suddenly chiming in about the league an its players, offering narratives untethered to facts and occasionally making me long for the days when the WNBA largely flew under the table.”

Well, listen. I admit, I haven’t been around the Fever much in recent years, the biggest reasons being that they absolutely sucked, they were run ineptly and very few people really cared. But it’s not like I’m writing about the top five power forwards in the WNBA; at this point in my re-education, I couldn’t name five power forwards in the WNBA. That said, I’ve followed sports long enough – over 40 years – to recognize a cheap shot when I see it. And Carter’s shot on Clark was a cheap shot.

What? I can’t say that?

 Really, then.