Seeing some criticism of Steph White for wearing a shirt with Kelsey's SLAM cover on it, saying that since she didn't wear Caitlin's SLAM shirt it was clear evidence of favoritism Guys I'm all for fair criticism of SW but like SW has worn Caitlin shirts too This picture was not hard to find What WAS tough to find was any criticism of her for wearing THIS shirt saying it showed clear favoritism Instead all I could find was the correct sentiment, which was, she's celebrating her player for a huge accomplishment Which is exactly the same thing as she's doing with the SLAM cover Again, I am all for fair criticism, but this is not that

I've reread this article several times today and I really do think it is required reading for anyone even remotely interested in Caitlin Clark The thing I want to specifically talk about this post is how she dealt with her return from injury It is clear in this article, and I think vastly underreported and underappreciated by many including me just what kind of a mental battle she was going thru in learning to trust herself and trust her own body after her sequence of injuries last year I know we all heard about it, I know we all went, yeah yeah sure, but we all collectively freaked out when she went on the bike during that first game of the season, we all freaked out when she sat out the Portland game in game number 4, we said there was a new phantom injury, we said the medical team were mismanaging her, we said she'd never be healthy again. Famously the No Cap Space people said her career would be inexorably altered forever And then of course, there was the freakout of all freakouts that took all of that and turned the volume up to 1000% when she was held out of a game last minute without warning Though this article doesn't explicitly state it, the things it does say coupled with Caitlin's statements from the moment make it exceedingly clear that she was the driving force behind these decisions, that she felt something twinge and wanted to take every precaution to give her peace of mind that her body wasn't breaking down again, and (far from mismanaging her injury) the Fever did everything they could to accommodate her, including taking intense and massive public criticism and scrutiny without a single word of complaint I for one am very glad Caitlin feels better both physically and mentally, I am glad that she is back to 100% on the floor and is playing like the MVP she is and will be, and is out of what seems to have been an absolute mental and emotional crucible And I will try to do better in future to be more mindful of the mental and emotional battles she is facing when she says she is facing them

Most unsurprising news in the history of news The whole LA Sparks run the past couple of years has been absolutely cursed They fired Curt Miller as their HC/GM because they thought they were going to get Paige (and to be fair they had the draft odds for it) and wanted to completely design their franchise around her Ironically of course Curt ended up as the GM in Dallas who ended up actually getting the #1 pick and picking Paige - just a funny quirk of fate Anyway, after that initial fail LA ended up trading the #2 pick which eventually became Dom Malonga to Seattle in the Kelsey Plum trade and ended up trading the #3 pick which became Awa Fam to Seattle as well, and ended up trading Rickea Jackson to Chicago for Ariel Atkins essentially straight up Not exactly winning moves Meanwhile Lynne Roberts established herself as a good offensive coach who could not coach a lick of defense - we are talking historical levels of ineptitude in this area Given all this, unsurprising that the current regime has been given the boot In theory, LA should be a great place to play and an easy franchise to build - great franchise history, brand new practice facility, and it is in LA - that stands for LOS ANGELES But for the past decade or so, theory has not translated to reality Let's see how the next regime does I guess

Trying to figure out if there is any way in the known universe that I could get to Indy for Tuesday's game and the answer of course is absolutely positively not a chance in hell But it's fun to think about Maybe I could bring Jessica Alba as my plus one as long as we're thinking about stuff that will never happen

It's no secret I have been incredibly frustrated at the way The Athletic has treated Clark over the years But this is a very good and well written article, importantly not written by any analysts who have suggested she be benched for Raven Johnson Also a Jess mention though not by name

If you were to ask me the top 3 teams I was worried about in the playoffs, I would have listed Dream, Mystics, Lynx, in that order The fact that we are on the other side of the bracket from all of them makes me happy Does this mean I am not worried about the teams on our side of the bracket? Of course not, they are all stacked over here too But I'm much happier here

Golden State did everything they possibly could to sell that game but turns out the Sparks sold harder Indy will play Vegas in the first round I will be doing a write up of my analysis tomorrow but my quick reaction Everything I know about basketball tells me we should win this series But They're the fucking Aces man They're champs for a reason and that reason is they are mentally stronger than you So the question is How much is that championship mentality and experience worth We are about to find out

Thank Christ Tony my man I owe you a beer for this good news

Fever lose big They are the 6 seed and will face Vegas in the first round (assuming GSV takes care of business) An outcome that I believe is the more desirable path and it seems like they agree given their level of effort, or lack thereof This game was ugly on every level but the only thing I care about from a basketball perspective - really and truly - is AB's health status There has been a lot of AB slander this season but the reality is that without her we are finished, as sure as the day is long All I wanna hear is that she is ok and her coming out of the game was just precautionary From an emotional standpoint, the Ty Harris injury is devastating because if it's what it looked like we will not see her for a long, long time - like we are talking 2028 And even if it's not what it looked like, even if it's far less serious, we won't have her for the playoffs and that is a very tough pill to swallow Anyway, less said about this game the better Vegas next

The Ty Harris injury is awful - I'm not going to speculate on what it is but I have my thoughts and they are not positive She has been one of the best signings in the entire WNBA as far as value is concerned and to see her go down in this most meaningless of games is... I don't even have words for how I'm feeling Not good

Get me out of here man

Everyone talking about how we needed to play this game like a regular game and not offend the basketball karma gods I'm gonna need y'all to go sit in the corner and think about things for a minute

And now we have the reason I said we should sit our starters for this game

This is what it looks like when you want the Aces matchup but also don't want to give them bulletin board material

This is ugly but it's also what it looks like when a team is literally giving 50% effort No ball movement, no rotating on defense, they're throwing without throwing Either that or the entire team got lobotomized between Tuesday and today Which is possible!

That's right Indy Get it alllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll out

End 1st Fever down 32-13 Not really much to say other than we hit our first shot of the game with 3 minutes left in the quarter 3 more quarters to go and I would be very surprised if we saw Caitlin for any of it

Fever are getting absolutely blown away and I care not a single whit I don't want to say that they came out with no energy, that wasn't true, but once it became clear that the bucket had an absolute lid on it and that the Lynx were out for blood I think everyone kind of stopped caring Anyway Caitlin's already out presumably never to be seen again and you gotta believe the other starters are not far behind, except maybe Kelsey to keep the streak alive, if she even cares about that Vegas (probably) here we come

To throw or not to throw Ultimately here is where I have landed I think you will see the starters play about a half on both sides Maybe less if the game swings hard in one direction or the other Similar to what Cheryl did the other night in Indy Also I'm not sure the level of seriousness you will see from both squads There's really nothing for either team to play for, not really Except for Kelsey's streak and CC's assists on the Indy side And the fact that Minny got absolutely fried by this squad the other night in Indy So I think we will see, shall we say, a game with the level of seriousness of the All Star game on both sides Sounds fun! Sign me up!