Charles Barkley was among the first to call out the ‘pettiness’ of WNBA veterans toward rookie Caitlin Clark, and he’s sticking with his stance.
Since then, Angel Reese seemingly took a shot at Clark on social media (denied by her mother), and Chennedy Carter hit Clark with a flagrant foul.
Barkley is baffled, believing the WNBA hit the lottery with the ‘shining star’ Clark. He initially praised Clark for staying focused on her game.
“The thing I like about her, she doesn’t say a word. She’s never said a word about anybody. She just shows up and does her job,” he said.
Barkley says Clark was bound to face some rookie treatment, “but I didn’t think she was going to have to worry about all this petty nonsense that’s going on.”
He believes it’s made the WNBA look bad.
“This is not the old days where any publicity is good publicity,” he said. “It’s really bad publicity for the WNBA, because we’re not talking about basketball. Any time you have a sport, especially this sport, and you are talking about negativity… when you’re talking about all this pettiness and negativity, you’re not talking about the game.”
Barkley had no issue with Carter’s actions, saying it’s part of giving rookies ‘the business.’
“But you can just tell [the Sky players] were going overboard,” he added.
“They act like she didn’t earn it. The woman just scored the most points ever by a man or a woman. ‘She’s only getting this job because she’s White.’ Is race a factor? Yes, race is a factor. But her résumé speaks for itself… They didn’t prop her up just because she’s White,” Barkley said.
Charles Barkley doubles down on ‘petty nonsense’ regarding Caitlin Clark: ‘Really bad publicity for the WNBA’ https://t.co/OZweCTyB5z
— Fox News (@FoxNews) June 7, 2024
