Ticking off boxes for the spirit of the age appeared to show why one white WNBA player is celebrated at the same time Caitlin Clark is taking fists to the throat.
Selling out jerseys and stadiums since finishing up her college career and joining the Indiana Fever, Clark’s freshman season found many viewing her as the new face of a less-than-welcoming league. Treatment by peers and the media has painted a stark contrast to the Dallas Wings’ Paige Bueckers, who has kept herself clear of “the same degree of social debate.”
Such was the assertion of Outkick’s Jackson Thompson as he presented the dichotomy between the white players, with Clark “often at the center of mainstream cultural discussions.”
Days after former NFL wide receiver Harry Douglas sparked controversy on ESPN Radio’s “Freddie and Harry” by saying, “Everything we expected Caitlin Clark to be, Paige Bueckers has been in the WNBA,” the sports writer presented Bueckers’ background with divorced parents, “raised primarily by her father while navigating a split-household dynamic after her mother eventually remarried and moved to Montana. Bueckers grew up in a blended family with three half-siblings, including a younger brother Drew who is biracial and partially Black,” juxtaposed against Clark’s “traditional American nuclear family.”
The Wings player also participated in Black Lives Matter protests and, when she accepted the award for Best Female College Athlete the following year at the 2021 ESPY Awards, said, “With the light that I have now as a white woman who leads a black-led sport and celebrated here, I want to show a light on black women. They don’t get the media coverage that they deserve. They’ve given so much to this sport … Everyone who voted, thank you. But I think we should use this power together to also celebrate black women.”
“I think we should use this power together to also celebrate Black women.”
Paige Bueckers with an incredible speech and message after winning the ESPY award for Best College Athlete, Women’s Sports.
📽️: @UConnWBB | #ESPYShttps://t.co/iXpT1xxUYh
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) July 11, 2021
While injury took Bueckers out of the spotlight for a time, Clark made national headlines for the University of Iowa, in particular following a 2023 NCAA championship matchup against LSU’s Angel Reese.
“Every arena she visited sold out. Fans lined up for hours just to watch her warm up,” wrote Thompson. “But the intense media scrutiny also meant the culture war narratives followed her every move.”
The rivalry with Reese carried over into the WNBA, where the Chicago Sky power forward was deemed “Jussie Smollett with a worse shooting percentage,” by OutKick founder Clay Travis after a game where Clark received a flagrant foul and Reese received a technical foul while claiming she was submitted to racist heckling from the crowd, only for an investigation to find no evidence in support of the claim.
“Clark has become an icon for conservatives as the embattled superstar of the WNBA, facing controversially physical treatment and questionable rankings,” he went on in the wake of WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert avoiding an interview with Dan Patrick to face “tough questions” about the treatment of the Fever star who had recently been punched in the throat while on the ground by Phoenix Mercury player Alyssa Thomas.
Weak WNBA commissioner reportedly dodges Caitlin Clark controversy https://t.co/JS03X59gT3
— BPR (@BIZPACReview) July 12, 2026
“Meanwhile, Bueckers revealed herself to be part of the LGBTQ community in 2025,” wrote Thompson after highlighting Clark’s own relationship with Butler Bulldogs Assistant Coach Connor McCaffrey as the “archetypal basketball power couple,” further enshrining the Wings player as a darling in the league.
“Clark continues to keep her head down, rarely engaging with the noise, treating the basketball court as her only sanctuary,” he concluded in part. “Bueckers, meanwhile, is deeply entrenched in the league’s cultural fabric.”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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