If you have been following me for any amount of time, you know that I have taken a bit of interest in the world of women's basketball lately. It helps that my nieces all play or have played basketball at one point in their lives. Likewise, the world seems to be enthralled with the sport lately due in great part to the efforts of one Caitlin Clark.
I've made no secret of my misgivings about Clark. She might be a tremendous player with insane stats, but I personally think she plays a bit lazy at times. I was going to say selfish, but her assist numbers would tell a different story.
No, I just don't generally care for her attitude on the court. I remember when the Ball kids were coming up through high school. There was a video of the youngest one simply standing under the basket and cherry picking his shots. Sure, he was always going to score a lot because he was never hustling back to play defense. That's just lazy.
I see similar behaviors from Clark. I get it, when you can bury a three point shot from the half court line you maybe don't need to run all the way back, but come on. Add to that, the attitude she has whenever the whistle is blown against her and you can see how I have my issues.
I saw a stat the other day that said 17% of the flagrant fouls in the WNBA this year have been committed against Caitlin Clark.
Never one to trust a percentage without knowing more information, I did some digging
It turns out there have been a total of 30 flagrant fouls committed in the WNBA this year. That means exactly five of them have been at the expense of Clark.
The stat I found went on to say that 80% of them have been delivered to her via the Chicago Sky team.
Remember though, there were only 5 to begin with, so that means probably about four of them were committed on Clark by the Sky. Interestingly enough, Clark's old rival from LSU Angel Reese plays on the Chicago team.
Coincidence..... ????
Of course I'm not saying a flagrant foul is ever warranted and if one player is getting targeted more than others, there should definitely be something done about it. Some might argue she draws more of that type of foul due to her aggressive play style, but I think we have already established that isn't the case.
I've always been a bit fascinated by percentages like that when they are thrown around in a scandalous manner. Digging into the actual sample size or the bigger numbers can tell a totally different story than you might assume from the initial numbers.
Either way you look at it. This is just one more stat number that Clark can add to her resume I guess. I'm sure it won't be the last one she adds before her rookie season is over.
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