Key Takeaways
- Elle Duncan says the nonstop culture-war discourse around Caitlin Clark has become "exhausting" and "absurd," stressing that bad-faith commentators—not Clark herself—are weaponizing her name to push misogynistic and racist agendas.
- Arguing that Clark’s current strategy of staying above the fray "isn't working," Duncan urges her camp to explicitly disavow politicians and media figures using her as a pawn, even imagining Clark telling Congress to "stay out of this" and stop infantilizing her.
- Duncan laments that WNBA coverage keeps getting hijacked by Clark-related drama—from the Alyssa Thomas collision to debates over who is the league’s "face"—and says the focus urgently needs to return to the actual basketball.
The Caitlin Clark conversation has officially worn out Elle Duncan. After another WNBA All-Star Weekend dominated by off-court debates, the veteran broadcaster said the nonstop discourse surrounding the Indiana Fever star has become exhausting—and argued that while Clark isn't to blame, her current approach to addressing the noise isn't stopping it.
"We've been circling this drain for a while," Duncan said during an appearance on The Sports Gossip Show. "It was last year... that I came to the realization that this is not going anywhere. I truly believed that at some point this would just die out... It's getting worse. We've got congressional hearings. It's so absurd on so many levels."
Duncan was careful to separate Clark from the controversy itself. Rather than faulting the Fever guard, she argued that commentators, politicians and online personalities have repeatedly hijacked Clark's name to fuel broader cultural battles that have little to do with basketball.
"I do not think it's on Caitlin," Duncan said. "These bad faith characters have used her, have used her name, image, and likeness to be misogynistic, or racist, a bigot."
Even so, Duncan believes the status quo isn't accomplishing what Clark likely wants: shifting the focus back to basketball.
"It's not working," Duncan said. "The definition of insanity is to just keep doing the same thing."
Instead, Duncan suggested Clark and her camp consider a more direct response—one that explicitly distances the Fever star from people using her name to wage political fights or attack other players.
"I would love for someone on her team to look at her and go, 'You need to be calling these people out by name,'" Duncan said.
She even imagined what that message could sound like: "'Stay out of this, Congress. I, with all due respect, do not need you sticking up for me. I do not need you infantilizing me... I have nothing but respect for these people. Stop it.'"
Duncan's comments arrive after weeks of headlines that have stretched far beyond the court. Clark's collision with Alyssa Thomas sparked renewed criticism of WNBA officiating; Fever coach Stephanie White questioned how physical the game had become; teammate Sophie Cunningham argued opponents were “definitely targeting Clark; and lawmakers ultimately inserted themselves into the conversation by urging the league to do more to protect players.
Since then, the debate has expanded to include whether Clark is the face of the WNBA, with figures ranging from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Jemele Hill to Dave Portnoy and Robert Griffin III weighing in.
Clark, for her part, has repeatedly tried to cool the rhetoric. She condemned the online harassment directed at Thomas after her suspension, saying, "The harassment, the hate, none of that is OK."
During All-Star Weekend, she also admitted the constant attention can be emotionally draining.
"I think sometimes people forget... I have feelings," Clark told ESPN's Malika Andrews. "I have really thick skin... but social media is not always reality."
For Duncan, that's precisely the problem. The basketball keeps getting buried beneath the discourse. She said covering the WNBA has become less enjoyable because nearly every storyline eventually circles back to Clark—whether she deserves it or not.
"I don't know how that happens," Duncan said of getting the focus back where she believes it belongs, "but it needs to."
