NBA champion sends strong message after Caitlin Clark’s WNBA debut

Caitlin Clark made her WNBA debut Tuesday night, finishing with 20 points and 10 turnovers on 5/15 shooting. While it wasn’t the performance Clark was looking for in her early days, few players in any professional sport burst onto the scene and dominate the game from the outset.

The expectations are obviously sky-high for Clark after what she was able to accomplish at the collegiate level, but there is almost always a period of adjustment when moving from this level to the next. In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), 2018 Golden State Warriors champion Nick Young called out the people who trashed Clark after his debut:

Young compared the treatment to what Chicago Bulls guard Lonzo Ball experienced early in his career. Ball was selected second overall by the Los Angeles Lakers out of UCLA and was touted by many as the savior of that franchise. It didn’t work out that way for Ball and the Lakers, as he was eventually traded to the New Orleans Pelicans as part of the Anthony Davis trade, but Ball still developed into a very solid NBA player before his injuries.

Young’s point is that people need to allow players to grow, especially when they have the opportunity to really move the game forward like Clark does.

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