A part of her appeal was that she appears to be an ordinary citizen playing ball. Her name might as well as be "Jane Doe".
She was marketable due to her relatability.
LeBron James does not have that. Even though he's a star, obviously.
Anyway, Caitlin Clark lost all of that by bending the knee. From her point of view, perhaps she felt that she had no choice. She was getting beaten up by other players in the league.
I don’t follow sports very much, but what I did see of Caitlin last year, left me feeling sorry for her.
She’s trying to survive in an uncomfortable working environment. The Coaches are not necessarily helping. She just wishes to play and play well, but she has discovered herself entangled in a lot of petty feuds and turf wars, not things she grew up having to deal with, certainly not game after game.
Once Caitlin gets out of the league she will probably do a Lindy Li.
(Linday Li is the Democrat fundraiser who was terrorized by blacks on the streets of Philadelphia but was afraid to speak of it in front of fellow Democrats. Once she switched sides she is now coming clean. She mentions it in her Shawn Ryan interview here):