Not and Hot
One could ask if the media rule is it is merit if the blacks win, popularity if the whites win.
Olivia Dunne hot. Caitlin Clark set a scoring record and demonstrated a tremendous work ethic.
Clark was snubbed for being white and straight. Her performance elevated her to prominence but is irrelevant to her denial of a spot on the Olympic team. I haven’t looked, but I doubt the current roster are also holders of all the top performance records in the league. Even if it were, that assumes there are no others that could perform our out-perform those selected. It is not a mathematical elimination like swimming, where you have to perform as top 2 in your event at trials to get a spot. Personality/popularity will always play a part with team sports because they do not have fixed standards.
Olivia Dunne is quite attractive and obviously fit, the source of her popularity. I don’t know what her ranking is in gymnastics or even if she’s interested/tried out/was invited to try out. But the Olympic gymnastic team selection is based on scores at trials, so the premise of the article is flawed.
Olivia Dunne is to gymnastics as Paige Van Zant is to MMA.
Gymnastics is an individual sport. Basketball is about building team spirity. I would think the coach would want a mix of colors, orientation, and religion. 66pct should be white, 17pct black, 5pct queer, the rest of the spots can be competed for. THESE people built this world of Equity, be equitable.
To be fair, Clark leads the league in turning the ball over. Her time is coming.
If Clark stayed amateur and declared her intent/desire to play for team USA in the Olympics after setting the NCAA scoring record, it would have been hard to ignore her.
I watched the Fever play the New York Liberty the other night,
(Imagine that, this cowboy watching a WNBA game), I think Caitlin only played about two minutes in the second half, and the sellout crowd of about 20,000 were chanting: “We want Caitlin”. What Caitlin needs is somebody like Bill Laimbeer, an enforcer, on the team so when somebody body slams her to the floor while she’s waiting for an inbounds pass the enforcer can say to Chennedy: “I’m sorry, your face got in the way of my elbow”. Caitlin needs to get in the weight room during the off-season and gain some upper body strength. She’s already played a full college schedule this season and now 10 games in the WNBA. I think the girl could use some rest, as much as I would have liked to see her play in the Olympics.
Not and Hot
Jealosy is an ‘included at no extra cost’ with leftists, since they realize that they’ll never have any true class.
Dunne is popular because she is hot, not because she is a great gymnast. She is for display, not for top competition.
I get tired of all this “find somebody somewhere on the internet and make a big deal about what he’s saying as though it represents anything more than one guy’s opinion journalism.”
I think the main difference is that the USWB team will run away with the gold with or without her, so concerns like increasing the popularity of the sport can play a bigger role in making up the roster.
Whereas women’s gymnastics is much more competitive and you really need the best medal hopefuls to try to win the gold.
I’m mean, by the time the Dream Team was playing in 1992, Larry Bird was probably not one of the 11 best players in the NBA due all the injuries his body suffered up until that point. They picked him because he was super popular and still a very good player, and the purpose of the Dream Team wasn’t to win a gold (that was given), it was to make the NBA more popular.
Is Olivia Dunne an Olympic Class athlete? That’s all that counts. If you aren’t the best, you don’t belong there. Forget sports entertainment; that’s the networks problem. The USOC’s problem is to take the best athletes in the country and have them compete for medals.
If we are more concerned about ratings than medals, we shouldn’t be competing. Want to do something with Olivia Dunne and Kaitlin Clark? Have them become commentators, extolling the virtues of the best of the best.
First, I reject that women's gymnastics needs help to push interest of the fans. Certainly in Olympic years, many fans are interested in gymnastics. I think Americans at least, have shown that they are very supportive of the young ladies on the gymnastics' team.
Olivia Dunne is gorgeous and she's been a great ambassador for her college, LSU and there's been fan interest wherever the LSU team traveled these past few seasons. She has millions of followers on social media. She is not however, an elite gymnast. She's athletic and graceful, but she does not have anything close to the routines that would make your jaw drop. I think she would fairly admit that; to my knowledge, she's never expressed any resentment that she was somehow overlooked. She's not even considered the best gymnast for LSU, much less in the Top 10 US gymnasts.
Caitlyn Clark was the all-time leader in points scored in women's college basketball. She likely holds other records as well. She WAS women's college basketball for the past couple seasons while playing at Iowa.
Clark now plays for the Indiana Fever, one of 12 WNBA teams. Arenas are at capacity wherever she plays, She's a great ambassador to the sport, she's well-spoken and single-handedly carrying the WNBA right now. She has multiple millions in sponsorship deals, worth far more than the paltry $90,000 or so that she receives in salary. It's not that the Fever are stingy, but there are league maximums that they can pay her as a rookie. Because there is typically little interest in the WNBA as a whole, the league doesn't make a profit. They're subsidized by the NBA, so they can't pay their WNBA players anywhere near their NBA counterparts.
But Caitlyn Clark is a rising tide, lifting all boats in the league. Because of a few words from her mouth about team travel, instead of commercial air travel, teams are now chartering jets for their players.
No one knows how long the Caitlyn Clark "effect" will be around the WNBA. Does she have upside, will she continue to improve and become one of the greatest players of all time at the professional level? No one knows. She is drawing attention now however and if the stats I've seen are accurate, she has better season stats than others who've made the Olympic team.
While we don't know what her upside is, she is playing well (for a rookie), and she IS the WNBA right now. She has a huge following. Diana Taurasi, Chennedy Carter, Angel Reese and most other WNBA players do not. Honestly, few people care if the Liberty are playing the Sparks, or the Mercury are playing the Dream. Those teams don't have Caitlyn Clark on them. This year, the US Olympic team won't have Clark on it. It will have Britney Griner on it.
Time will tell if that was a good choice or not. Winning a gold medal will not be the measure of whether or not it was a good choice. Whether or not the WNBA has more fans or fewer fans is the better measure. Leaving Caitlyn Clark off the team may not be the same as "killing the golden goose," but they're sure trying to strangle it.
Of course this is all 100% made up. Sure FANS say they want her to go. But she isn’t going to the trials, and therefore won’t go to Paris. So all the comparisons to Clark are kinda silly.
Apples and Oranges, with Caitlin it is her historic accomplishments ON THE COURT.