Five Out: Olympic group play wrap up, D'Tigress make history and we're back to 0 days without Caitlin Clark discourse.

In Five Out, we explain how to be an ethical hater in women's basketball, who is having the more fun Olympic break? Angel Reese or Caitlin Clark? And much more for the week of August 4th, 2024.

As the Olympics continue, there’s still plenty to talk about in the world of women’s basketball. This week we’ve got a lot to touch on in terms of how to hate ethically and make your point in a take while still being taken seriously. There’s also some more macro WNBA points and plenty of good bits about the national teams competing in Paris.

What can you expect on Substack this week?

• In lieu of a Luxury Tax episode this week, we’ll have a special guest for a ‘Tales From the Beat’ segment to discuss day-to-day coverage of the WNBA and the local phenomenon surrounding Caitlin Clark.

• Wednesday will bring a new Legendarium installment. This week, we head to California to learn about one of the great pioneers of uptempo women’s basketball and their influence on Southern California (here’s a hint: it’s not USC or UCLA). If you’ve missed any of our previous installments, click here.

• We’ll have some rapid reactions from Olympic games coming. The team got together to discuss the Team USA - Germany matchup and preview the knockout rounds. You can watch here on Youtube or listen here on Podcasts.

1. Nigeria women’s basketball is the story of the Olympics so far…

We worked on this story last week about how the Nigerian women’s basketball team has been through quite a lot. The federation faced an internal ban on international competition that took them out of contention for the FIBA World Cup. In Paris, they weren’t allowed to get on their national team boat for the Opening Ceremonies down the Seine.

With, on paper, one of the less experienced rosters in the tournament, Nigeria came out and stunned Australia, beat Canada and automatically advanced to the knockout rounds where they now face Team USA. The run will likely end there but that shouldn’t mean we lose sight of just how incredible this accomplishment is. For the first time in Olympic history, an African nation is heading to the knockout round in basketball. Notice I didn’t say *women’s* basketball. This is a first for any African team in 5x5, male or female. That it’s this team is nothing short of remarkable.

It’s important to note that there’s only three Nigerian born players on the roster. The rest, from leading scorer Ezinne Kalu to captain Amy Okonkwo, are all Americans with roots in the country. There is something rather poetic about a group of daughters of a diaspora returning home to make history. That’s before we get to their head coach, 32-year-old Tulane assistant coach Rena Wakama who may now be one of the hottest names in college head coaching searches next year. There is just something authentically fun about D’Tigress and their road to the knockout rounds. It may not continue but it’s incredible to see what they’ve been able to do up to this point.

2. Canada is in need of a self-audit after a group stage crash out.

Conversely, Canada had their death warrant signed by Nigeria on Sunday morning. With three losses, zero wins and a -35 point differential, it was a tough end to a forgettable week in Lille for the Canadians. There’s all sorts of reasons as to why it happened but one thing is for sure: if they’re serious about their basketball up north, changes will be made.

In their defense, Team Canada is in something of a transitionary phase. Captain Natalie Achonwa announced her international retirement shortly after the game against Nigeria. While Kia Nurse, at 28 years old, will likely be around for another go in Los Angeles, much of this team is under the age of 24. Is that an excuse for not registering a single win? Not really. Coach Victor LaPena will have some thinking to do (assuming he keeps the job) about how to best utilize this roster. They have good bigs but no one extremely versatile. Laeticia Amihere, Yvonne Ejim and Aaliyah Edwards are great frontcourt pieces but no one stretches the floor out of that group. Their guards are overmatched but the young core of Cassandre Prosper and Syla Swords will be great in the future.

But this roster, on paper, was better than what we ended up with in this Olympic cycle. Going forward, I’m curious to see exactly what the changes might be, if LaPena continues to be the head coach (especially with Seattle Storm head coach Noelle Quinn sitting on the first assistant chair) and what kind of selections will occur. While I can understand many Canadian fans that say this was a bridge Olympics for the real golden generation to take things over in 2028, the German national team had just as much youth in their roster and managed to succeed in Paris. It’s good for the game if Canada has a vibrant women’s basketball culture that can contend on the international stage, especially with their neighbors down south. So if I’m running their basketball federation, I’m convening everyone that matters as soon as they return from France. Because this should be the wake up call that things need to improve headed into the next Olympic cycle.

3. Time to reset the clock on “days without weird Caitlin Clark discourse”.

Point number 3 is a lesson in ethical hating. Sheryl Swoopes got unnecessarily dragged over the coals because of a misinterpreted tweet accusing her of saying Katie Lou Samuelson is more important to the Indiana Fever than Caitlin Clark (this is not what she said, mind you). The post gained traction, broke containment, and we are officially back to zero days without weird discourse in the WNBA.

While Swoopes was maligned for no real reason (I really mean this! The audio is not nearly as bad as social media initially made it out to be), it is important to note that unethical hating got us to this point. In the past, the WNBA legend has seemed to have an axe to grind against Clark and her ascendance. Whether it was the incorrect fact about her age or years in college as Clark approached the NCAA scoring record to likening the rookie to a bully, it’s clear that there’s facets of her game that Swoopes just doesn’t like. The issue is that when you venture into the world of unethical hating, anything you say is construed as just that.

Enter the aforementioned podcast.

The only thing I did take a slight bit of issue with was Swoopes co-host, Jordan Robinson (who is absolutely excellent at what she does on Queens of the Court, it should be noted) posting an article to make a point that the Fever were one game out of playoff contention. In reality, the article listed was from September 1st, when Indiana was 11-25 and still had four games to play in the regular season.

Ultimately, what Swoopes said on this podcast wasn’t all that out of the ordinary. She made an argument for Angel Reese as Rookie of the Year and when you’re doing that you’re making a case over Clark. 22’s fanbase also has to take a step back and not react so viscerally (and worse, in some cases) to anything that feels like remote criticism. There’s plenty to critique about her game as much as there is to praise. But the problem is with the messenger and everything that’s led up to it. Just because Sheryl Swoopes is a WNBA legend doesn’t mean she’s exempt from being criticized for her takes. And when you start from a place of unethical hating, it’s hard to get the credibility of objective analysis back.

But what is an ethical hater?

Chauny

is here to give you the definition…

Ethical hate - the honesty of and intention to dislike. It is a situation where everyone has been given a heads up that you are bringing nothing but negativity when it comes to discussing a particular sports entity and therefore allows everyone to govern themselves accordingly when interacting. All shortcomings will be magnified while all achievements will be diminished at a consistent rate for a period determined by the hater.

Here’s an example: Bomani Jones is unabashed hater of NBA star Karl-Anthony Towns. So you know going into any discussion he has about KAT that Bomani is coming as a hater. In essence, take it with a grain of salt. If Swoopes was just a hater upfront then we wouldn’t have to have arguments about how much grace being a legend buys you. It’s legitimately okay if she just doesn’t like Clark’s game or doesn’t feel she’s that girl. But just say that. The hater analyst archetype exists on the men’s side and maybe it might help our discourse to allow the women’s basketball space to break free of always having to be in support of everyone all the time.

Anyways…what is Caitlin Clark up to?

4. The real Clark - Reese rivalry is who is having more fun on the Olympic break…

Depending on your musical preference, Angel Reese or Caitlin are having the best mini offseason. Reese popped out for a Megan Thee Stallion show and joined the music star on stage. Clark and Fever teammate Lexie Hull rolled up to a Jason Davis concert to a roaring ovation from the crowd.

Before this, mind you, Clark was in Mexico vacationing while Reese is at Disneyland Paris, riding a pink car-boat on the water and watching Team USA tune-up games in London.

While it would be fun to watch both of them competing in Paris (no, we’re not doing the merits argument here) it’s clear both of them needed a break to recenter and find some off-the-court happiness again. We really underestimate how much of a grind the WNBA is for rookies. For example, both played or practiced through most of the summer of 2023. They then entered team camp for Iowa and LSU, respectively, and went through an entire season. March comes around and they both play in conference tournaments followed by the NCAA’s. About two weeks after the title game, it’s the WNBA draft. Not even a few days later you’re in training camp for your team and the season is right around the corner.

In short, that’s a lot of work and not a lot of time off. Now that they’ve entered the W, their offseason’s will be a bit longer and we’ll see fresher versions of them at the start of each successive season. But this is a much needed and well earned time for two of the biggest stars of the sport to find their legs and enjoy watching the game for a change. I’m particularly excited in how they play with all this rest when they return on August 15th.

5. Some WBB reactions to the Imane Khelif smear campaign shows that the WNBA is not the activist league it’s touted to be. And that’s okay!

This column has touched on the ‘Activist League’ label given to the WNBA and the problematic nature of it before. Over the weekend, we got another example of how women’s basketball players are not a monolith politically or culturally. As Algerian boxer Imane Khelif was misgendered, slandered and generally attacked on social media, certain individuals made their opinion on the matter of transgender athletes in sports known. One Twitter account posted a screenshot of Phoenix Mercury guard Sophie Cunningham retweeting a transphobic post from political provacateur Ian Miles Cheong. It’s worth noting that opinions are split on whether or not the repost was authentic. But it hasn’t just been Cunningham, whose views on this matter have been litigated publicly before, who has expressed opinions that run counter to the general narrative of the WNBA’s politics.

Ohio State star and likely future WNBA player Cotie McMahon shared tweets that also attacked Khelif on the erroneous claim that the boxer was born a man. And in the last month, Notre Dame star Hannah Hidalgo came under fire for sharing a Candace Owens video that called homosexuality a sin.

As an individual, I don’t agree with any of the above views. This column isn’t meant to platform, defend, mainstream or handwave them away. Instead, it’s to reiterate a famous Charles Barkley quote.

“I am not a role model.”

In short, people are complicated. Your sports heroes may have their own beliefs that run counter to yours and while you want them to believe in what you think are the right things, to expect that of them is an exercise in futility. Because ultimately the idea that athletes are people, a point used to show that they’re more than the sport they play, can cut both ways.

While there have been spots where players in the league have been advocates for social justice or gotten involved in state level politics, there seems to be a desire for fans to imprint their beliefs onto players and have it re-affirmed league wide. But the culture women’s sports is a little more nuanced than we give it credit for. The Fellowship of Christian Athletes plays a major role in the lives of a lot of college age students who go on to the pros, many of whom are women athletes. There are people that come from different socioeconomic backgrounds that bring their own politics with them to school and then to the WNBA. This isn’t a piece to say ‘take the politics out of sports’. All sports is political, from a cultural standpoint, in some way, shape or form. What this recent slate of discourse should lead to is an understanding that the league itself isn’t different than any other and that fans who believe it is should either re-calibrate or prepare for the disappointment that will come when 144 voices aren’t always in unison.

Would it be nice for the league to disavow all problematic viewpoints — which, to be as fair as I can, is a moving target dependent on everyone’s individual beliefs and values — and for the entirety of the 144 plus college to take a stand on issues of importance? Absolutely. These are issues where lives are legitimately at stake. But to believe this league is or has ever been anything other than a sports league with some activists in it is idealistic at best. At the end of the day, once the money gets involved you’re going to start to see that activism get chipped away further and further. I just hope fans are ready when some of their favorite players start taking paychecks at the expense of being potential revolutionaries. Sadly, that’s the capitalism doom loop we’re stuck in. Nothing matters. Eat Arby’s.