Sophie Cunningham owes Sky guard Jacy Sheldon flowers.
That’s her mom’s position, anyway. Last season, after Sheldon poked Caitlin Clark in the eye, Cunningham answered with a flagrant foul that got her ejected — and went viral.
“‘In fact, you should send her candy or flowers every month, because that moment has changed your life,’” Cunningham’s mom said.
Life has indeed gotten pretty good for Cunningham since then. Her reputation as Clark’s “enforcer” brought more notoriety and endorsements. So Saturday, before a Sky-Fever game that featured its own viral flagrant on Cunningham, I asked Sheldon about that moment.
Had Cunningham ever apologized? Sheldon giggled, scoffed and shook her head.
“No.”
Right. We all know Cunningham doesn’t regret it. In trying to be polite, I’d asked the wrong thing.
The real question, by the standard applied to the rest of the league, is not whether she’s sorry but whether she’s grateful.
Is Cunningham grateful to Clark for the way their connection has raised her profile? Has she demonstrated the appropriate level of appreciation?
Funny thing. I don’t hear anyone asking that. I guess Cunningham gets a pass.
Meanwhile, WNBA players have heard some version of that demand for two years: They need to be more grateful to Clark for the audience she brought to the league.
If you cover the WNBA, you hear it all the time. Starting in 2024, people would ask me some variation of the same questions, often presented as concern for the growth of the league.
Why don’t the other players let Caitlin Clark score more?
Why don’t they like her?
Why doesn’t she have an “enforcer?”
None of it struck me as a threat to the league, so I tried to hear what people were really asking.
If I was being generous, I could hear people adjusting to the differences between the NBA and the WNBA.
A lot of new fans arrived from the men’s side and were bothered by a far more physical league. There also isn’t much of a tradition of a designated “enforcer” protecting a star player in the WBA, which I figured fans would get used to.
If I was being critical, though, I could hear some laziness.
Asking why players don’t like Clark, or simply calling them “jealous,” is a lot easier than grappling with the range of emotional reactions players might have to her popularity. After decades in which women’s basketball stars, many of them Black and/or queer, never got their due, Clark’s arrival could bring admiration and appreciation — but maybe some resentment, too.
But I don’t think either dynamic fully explains the intensity and persistence of fan reactions to perceived “attacks” on Clark, which can produce days of knock-down, drag-out fights online.
So permit me a bit of armchair psychology.
I think when people ask, “Why don’t other players like Clark?” there is an underlying fear that points back at them.
The gift and curse of sports is that we identify with our favorite players. We watch the game and suddenly we’re the ones hitting the deep three or getting poked in the eye by Sheldon. That’s just science. Look up mirror neurons if you’re in the mood.
So if Clark is your hero, a slight against her can feel personal. Suddenly we’re feeling that fundamental human anxiety about whether we are liked — but really, accepted.
That discomfort could be an opportunity to get vulnerable and talk about it. But we’re cranky and overstimulated, so instead we turn to internet warfare.
The good news is I don’t think this stands in the way of the league’s success.
The basketball is too good. The players and storylines are too interesting. It’s OK if we’re a little new, a little lazy or a little overidentified with our favorite players.
Eventually, we can all calm down and enjoy it.
One dynamic does worry me, though. I see it where Cunningham’s rising popularity meets the gratitude policing around Clark.
For some fans, complaining that WNBA players aren’t grateful enough to Clark seems to bridge two impulses: newfound excitement about Clark and the Fever, and a desire to continue the longstanding tradition of diminishing the WNBA and its history.
To Clark’s credit, she doesn’t really play that mess.
She always talks about playing in the WNBA as a lifelong dream and about the players she watched growing up. And while Clark is not exactly at the tip of the league’s progressive spear, she doesn’t position herself in opposition to its spirit, either.
Cunningham offers something different. She rarely mentions how the league shaped her growing up — not once did it come up in the big ESPN profile on her. And she’s more willing to position herself against parts of its progressive culture, lately through her stance on transgender athletes in women’s sports.
Maybe there’s a gift here: Cunningham helps nonprogressive fans feel seen in a league where they previously didn’t. A bigger WNBA audience will necessarily include people with different politics.
But if Cunningham fandom gives people a way to cheer for the Fever while continuing to spit on the league? I think that’s corrosive.