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Former Iowa Hawkeyes star Caitlin Clark has played in a grand total of, hang on… oh, right, zero regular season WNBA games.
So, naturally, some of her more “zealous” fans are already unhappy with how her Indiana Fever coach Christie Sides has been handling the new face of the WNBA.
Last week after Caitlin Clark went just 4-of-12 from the field, Sides told the media, “I think she’s used to some shots that she’s taken in the last few years that are just those deep shots. She’s gonna get open looks. She’s gotta figure out— I gave her a rule the other day. She’s got 0.5 seconds to make a decision.”
Sides also said about Clark, “When she gets off the ball and she hits somebody in the high post, she has a habit of hanging out and dancing. That’s what she’s done. It’s these habits that we’ve gotta break.”
That type of constructive criticism is basketball blasphemy when it comes to the two-time national player of the year, at least to whoever edited Christie Sides’ Wikipedia page.
Under the heading “Indiana Fever,” it now reads, “Sides got her first head coaching job in 2022, when she was hired as the ninth head coach in Indiana Fever franchise history and the only coach that could possibly ruin what the wnba [sic] is on track to accomplish by ruining Caitlin Clark’s game.”
Wikipedia
Apparently those fans missed it when Sides said after Clark’s first practice working with the starters, “Her ability to space the floor for us is just incredible. We’re going to have five players on the court that can shoot it, but her passing ability – you saw some of the passes she made. I’m more mad at the how many missed layups we had. I think we’re just not used to having those, someone who can make those passes.”
Or does that not count?
Perhaps fans should at least wait until Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever play their first game of the 2024 WBNA regular season Tuesday night against the Connecticut Sun before making bold proclamations one way or the other.