Caitlin Clark has the hot-take machine overheating

The first sign the Caitlin Clark discourse might get a little weird came back in February, and Clark wasn't even in the building.

Sabrina Ionescu, the New York Liberty star, had just put on a dazzling performance in a 3-point contest against Stephen Curry, losing to the greatest shooter in history but with a point total better than most of the NBA shooters who contested the event earlier that night.

On the TV broadcast, Kenny Smith's immediate response to her display was that she should have shot from the WNBA's closer 3-point line instead of from behind the NBA arc. The contest wasn't fair, he lamented.

It was an odd reaction. Instead of celebrating Ionescu's feat, one of the more genuinely exciting moments at an NBA All-Star Weekend in recent years, Smith implied that she shouldn't have even tried to match Curry shot for shot. It came off as condescending.

It's a pattern that's been repeated as Clark burst into the WNBA as its most heralded rookie ever, only to be on the receiving end of lopsided losses and rough treatment. Analysts who never before paid attention to women's basketball have weighed in with an assortment of opinions both well-meaning and insulting. Outlets that normally don't even pay attention to sports have acted as though Clark is a delicate flower to be protected from her dangerous opponents. And even the backlash to all that has become overheated, with claims that Clark is in fact overrated and that nothing that's happened to her is unusual in WNBA terms.

It's as though there's an imbalance in the take industry. Deep breaths, everyone.

The cycle began before Clark made her WNBA debut when players like retired legend Sheryl Swoopes and active legend Diana Taurasi made fairly routine assessments of what they expected the incoming all-time NCAA scoring leader to do in the pros. Swoopes said Clark wouldn't be able to match her college stats straightaway and Taurasi said rookies often have an adjustment period. "Reality is coming," Taurasi said, explaining that there's a difference between playing against teenagers in college and against seasoned professionals.

These were not searing critiques, but there was a predictable online backlash of the type normally seen with defenders of Taylor Swift or K-pop bands. "The new fans are really sensitive these days," Taurasi later said. And yet those offended on Clark's behalf also included LeBron James and Charles Barkley, who both said WNBA players should be grateful for the money and attention the former Iowa Hawkeyes phenom was bringing to the league. "Y'all petty, girls," Barkey said, in his unique way.

Radio host Colin Cowherd said the WNBA should have rigged the schedule so Clark's Indiana Fever began against softer opponents, while former NBA player Jeff Teague went a step further in suggesting that the games should be treated more like pro wrestling, allowing Clark to score buckets and impress all the new WNBA watchers.

Other than waving away the competitive integrity of a league that's existed for more than 25 years, the idea that players should be deferential to an opponent would be sacrilege in the NBA.

But the media storm picked up intensity last weekend when Chennedy Carter of the Chicago Sky, after some apparent verbal jousting with Clark, gave her a shoulder check that sent Clark crashing to the floor. It was a dirty play, and Carter's own coach later called it inappropriate.

The reaction was loud and ongoing. In addition to being talk-show fodder in which it was questioned whether Clark was being targeted because she is white, rich, and famous, conservative commentators like Megyn Kelly were outraged on her behalf, and even the Chicago Tribune's editorial board opined to say that Carter's shove on Clark would be "an assault" outside a sporting context and pleading for the rookie to "not became a target for rule-breakers." Just wait until the editorial board sees what happens to rookie quarterback Caleb Williams when he takes the field for the Chicago Bears this season.

That round of criticism, much of it overblown for what amounted to a shove and some of it using coded racial language like "thug" directed at Carter, then brought a backlash from those annoyed at all the pearl-clutching on Clark's behalf. A piece in The Atlantic decried the poorly formed opinions of all the Johnny-come-latelys in the media who now have many thoughts about women's basketball, noting Clark is far from the WNBA's first white star. A Washington Post column blasted Clark's overzealous defenders and said she "doesn't need to be coddled." Many noted that Angel Reese, Clark's former college nemesis, had also been hit with a dirty foul in a WNBA game, in an incident that garnered little media attention at all.

Several fine points were made, but the rhetoric on all sides seems a bit too charged, as though there's a binary choice between Clark as an unfair victim and Clark as a normal player getting the usual rookie treatment. Pick a lane.

It makes for a less spicy take, but surely there's a middle ground here. Is Clark getting tested like any other rookie? Sure. But is there maybe the odd sharp elbow that comes from her being promoted as the face of the WNBA before she was even in it, and from the fact she signed a reported $28-million shoe deal with Nike? Also possible. Why pretend like all her opponents have the exact same motivation?

After a 2-9 start, Clark's Fever play at Washington on Friday night. The focus will finally be back on basketball. Or, at least, one can hope. Clark should be around for a long time. There's no need to choose sides quite so soon.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.