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As Sophie Cunningham has defended Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark in the past, she has sent another message to people who undermine the impact of the former No. 1 overall pick in 2024. The Fever star in Cunningham would speak on her podcast about Clark, among other topics surrounding the WNBA.
There has been a constant conversation around the face of the WNBA, with the easy answer for some being Clark, but there's no denying that others disagree. Cunningham would say that it “pisses” her off when people don't think she is the “face of the league,” according to AZCentral.
“It literally pisses me off when people are like, ‘She's not the face of the league.' What? There's really good, well-known people in our league. I'm not discrediting them,” Cunningham said. “We have a lot of badasses in our league. Hell yeah to that. I'm all for that.
“But when people try to argue that she's not the face of our league — or, (thinking that) our league would be where we're at without her, you're dumb as (expletive),” Cunningham continued. “You're literally dumb as (expletive).”
Despite Clark missing a significant amount of time this season, there's no denying the talent that she has as Cunningham echoed the same sentiment.
“I just speak what I see; I speak what I know; and I just feel that she is the face of our league,” Cunningham said. “The stats and the numbers speak for themselves, and so that’s all I’m going to say about that.”
Fever's Sophie Cunningham on how the WNBA treats Caitlin Clark
With Clark having been away from the Fever due to her injury, the debate around her has been about other players in the league being more physical and having disdain towards the Iowa product. For Cunningham, it seemed inevitable that the 2024 rookie class was going to be checked harder by veterans, especially with “a lot more eyes” on the WNBA.
“Yeah, I think just as a whole, when rookie classes come in, the (veterans) are the top dogs, so when you come into this league, everybody gets checked; everybody has their welcome-to-the-W moment,” Cunningham said. “Some people have it a little bit more than others, but everyone has it.
“Last year with that rookie class, especially Caitlin, there’s just a lot more eyes on our league, and so maybe it was just emphasized,” Cunningham continued. “But everybody has theirs. I had a broken finger, a broken jaw; I broke up my elbow, and that was all a welcome-to-the-W moment. Like, don’t get it twisted. Everybody has them.”
Indiana is 17-13 as they next face the Phoenix Mercury on Thursday night.
