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Shannon Sharpe, long one of the loudest voices out there when it comes to showing public support for Caitlin Clark during her first season in the WNBA, got back on his soapbox on First Take on Monday.
Back in June, Sharpe joined his First Take co-host Stephen A. Smith in lambasting the U.S. Olympic team for leaving Caitlin Clark off the women’s basketball squad.
Then, in August, after Seattle Storm star Skylar Diggins-Smith inexplicably body-checked Caitlin Clark for trying to get the crowd fired up on a night when she broke the rookie assists record, Shannon Sharpe loudly exclaimed to his Nightcap podcast co-host Chad Johnson his belief that other WNBA players are just being petty.
Fast forward to Monday during an appearance by women’s basketball analyst Andraya Carter on First Take, and Shannon Sharpe was once again adamant in his belief that people inside and out of the WNBA, including those at ESPN, are, for some reason, trying to downplay the inarguable impact Caitlin Clark has had on women’s basketball this year.
“A lot of this noise came by people that were sitting on this network,” Shannon Sharpe said emphatically. “They tried to minimize her. Saying, ‘Well you giving her all this credit, what about the women that came before her?’ What the women came before? What they did cannot be taken away. That ain’t got nothing to do with Caitlin Clark!
“But there was a lot of people that tried to make sure they keep Caitlin Clark in her place because what you’re doing if you give her all this shine, you minimize what they done. You can’t minimize Maya Moore or Candace Parker or Lisa Leslie of Lauren Jackson or Diana Taurasi or Seimone Augustus or any of the other great players.
“Caitlin Clark, what she’s doing, doesn’t minimize what they’ve done. But we should’ve been giving her the credit! We saw the ratings, we saw the merchandise sales, we saw the attendance! But y’all want to make it about something else. ‘Oh, what about the women who laid the foundation? What about them? What about it?’
“That ain’t got nothing to do with Caitlin Clark! Caitlin Clark is box office! She’s doing this! And instead of giving her credit, y’all trying to make it about, ‘Oh y’all poo-poo-ing the old guard. Y’all never talked about the old guard like this.’ Nah, I ain’t gonna let it slide!”