The upside-down

 Indiana Fever coach Stephanie White did a little hollering during a timeout the other night, and now it's all over the Great Social Media Crazysphere that she's about to be fired.

As with everything in the GSMC, you can take that with a grain of salt. Or less.

What's instructive, however, is why it's all over the GSMC that White's about to be fired.

It's because the person she was mostly yelling at was Caitlin Clark.

Some goober in the stands caught it on video, because there's always a goober in the stands catching stuff on video. And now there's this viral clip of White speaking a trifle, well, passionately to Clark, after which Clark stands up, takes a swig out of a water bottle and shakes her head in disgust.

Now, none of us are as fluent in body language as we like to pretend we are. But Clark's body language seemed to suggest her reaction to being, well, coached, was this: You're full of (bleep), Coach.

Which brings us to the Superstar Effect, and how it tends to turn upside-down the way sports hierarchies are supposed to work.

Because if Caitlin Clark were just another player -- say, some anonymous kid on some middle school team -- her hindparts would have been on the bench for the foreseeable future, and Coach would have been carried through the streets in triumph for it. Because no one has any patience for attitude cases, and everything about the way Clark reacted screamed attitude case.

But what happened?

The Superstar Effect kicked in. And suddenly it was Caitlin Clark, Superstar, who was the victim of a mean, incompetent bumbler who clearly shouldn't have the privilege of  continuing as Clark's coach.

White's mistake was failing to recognize that. Her mistake was assuming she could coach Caitlin Clark the way she's coached other players -- by getting in her face when necessary -- without understanding she was CAITLIN CLARK. Savior of the WNBA, unrivaled mover of merch and tickets, all that.

So White hollered at her (Guard somebody!, seemed to be the gist), and then benched her in favor of Raven Johnson, a better defensive player. It was the correct move, given that the Fever was playing like ten pounds of you-know-what in a five-pound bag and getting their asses handed to them on the defensive end. And if Clark were merely that callow middle-schooler, and not, you know, CAITLIN CLARK, no one would have said a thing.

But she is Caitlin Clark. And they did.

On every other level of sport, see, Coach is the clear-cut winner in disputes with a player -- even a star player. In the upside-down of the professional level, however, it's the exact opposite. When Coach takes on a star player, Coach is going to take the "L" every time. 

RIP, in other words. As in, "rest in priorities."

In a sense, then, this is not really Clark's fault. She didn't invent the hierarchy; she's merely its latest beneficiary. Against all those kids and grownups in their Fever No. 22 jerseys, White has no chance in the court of public opinion. She is, after all, merely a coach, and thus an eminently replaceable part.

Is Caitlin Clark a wonderful basketball player, with otherworldly court vision and a knack for getting the ball in the basket? Indeed. Does she also turn the ball over too much, miss more of those logo threes than she makes, and become a liability when the Fever's on the defensive end?

Also indeed.

 But, again, none of that matters, here in the upside-down. And so here comes all this interwhatsis chatter that White should be fired, with even analysts who should know better weighing in.

One of them, the other day, said White was "the wrong coach for Caitlin Clark." 

Know what's most revealing about that?

No one wondered if perhaps Clark was the wrong player for Stephanie White.