Former two-time NBA champion Mychal Thompson has a great nickname to describe what Caitlin Clark is going through.
Thompson, who is the father of NBA star Klay Thompson, appeared on OutKick show “Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakich” during the week and shared that he has been a fan of Clark for a few years. He also discussed the negativity the former Iowa star has received from other WNBA players.
“Well, they don’t like Caitlin Clark,” Thompson said of other WNBA players. “Caitlin, I’ve been noticing. I’ve been following her career since she was a sophomore at Iowa. And I recognize how different she was, how different she played the game. She played the game like Steph Curry. We had never seen a woman play like that before. And I knew when she got further along in her career in college. I used to tell all my, colleagues who are not into women’s basketball. I said, ‘hey, man, you got to check out this girl in Iowa, man. She shoots from the logo. She shoots from almost half.’ Of course she’s different. And I was trying to emphasize for about a year and she finally caught on. And men who travel with us in our traveling party, who are basically anti women’s basketball, just didn’t care for it, didn’t want to talk about it, had no interest in it at all. Then all of a sudden they started watching Caitlin Clark and got intrigued by her. And they became fans of her and her game and, novices in the NBA.”
Thompson then revealed how his “JEEP” acronym perfectly explains what Clark is enduring.
“Man, I tell you, she needs a Jeep endorsement a commercial because Jeep is an acronym that I’ve come up with, or the way she has been treated and not welcomed into the WNBA. Jeep. The acronym is Jeep: that stands for jealousy, envy, egos, and pettiness. That’s the way the women have treated her and the WNBA, especially the old guard, the stars, because she is commanding so much attention and she is the sole reason why the WNBA is so popular now and enjoying more popularity and notoriety. And that drives the old guard crazy.”
Clark is so popular that she was left off the Olympic team reportedly because the team was concerned about all the attention she would command. The Indiana Fever rookie has also been targeted by opposing players throughout the season.
Clark is averaging 16.8 points, 5.9 rebounds, 7.8 assists and 1.5 steals per game this season.
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