Target practice

 Look, I know what some folks are gonna say these days when you suggest Caitlin Clark has become the WNBA's favorite Mugging of the Week target. I've been around. I know how some folks are.

They've gonna say, waaah, too bad, welcome to the bigs, rook.

They're gonna say them that gets all the exposure always are going to have a bullseye on their backs, so get over it.

They're gonna say it's a physical game and opponents have quickly figured out if you get physical with the league's newest Big Deal you can throw her off her game and knock the Big Deal right out of her.

All of this is true.

However.

However, when you go as out of the way as some opponents do simply to knock the crap out of the WNBA's perceived cash cow simply because she's the perceived cash cow, that's when I get off the boat.

I get off the boat because when Chicago guard Chennedy Carter shoulders Clark to the ground when the ball isn't even in play, someone needs to do something. And I'm not talking just about the game officials, who somehow didn't slap Carter with a flagrant foul even though it was as clearly a flagrant foul as any foul ever has been.

I'm talking about Clark's teammates. Where the hell were they?

One upon a time in a land far, far away, one of Duke University's designated asshats (and Duke always has a Designated Asshat, it's like a rule) stomped on a Kentucky player's chest during a scrum under the basket. Did it deliberately. Did it behind the official's back, and so got away with it.

That player was, of course, Christian Laettner. The Kentucky player whose chest he planted a foot on was Animu Timberlake. Neither Timberlake, nor any other Kentucky player, retaliated.

This is not what should have happened.

What should have happened was, the next time down the floor, someone in a Kentucky uniform should have knocked the Designated Asshat on his ass. Sent the kind of message that regrettably is the only kind of message that should be sent sometimes.

I'm not saying you should routinely turn basketball games into hockey games, mind you. Leave the bench-clearing brawls to the Hanson brothers and Ogie Oglethorpe.

However.

However, when Carter threw that shoulder into Clark yesterday, one of her Indiana Fever teammates should have thrown hands at Carter. And not just because it was Clark. You do it for anyone, because otherwise you're putting a great big Kick Me sign on your backside.

Want to take gratuitous shots at our prize rookie? Sure, go ahead. 'Cause, you  know, we're soft as Charmin.

Maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe that's not what the Fever are implying at all by their apparent disinterest in stepping up for a teammate.

I'm gonna take some convincing, though. Like, a lot of convincing.