TIme’s Sean Gregory<\/a>, Wilson\u2014without slighting Clark\u2014expressed her belief that popular lionization of the 2024 Rookie of the Year’s impact on women’s basketball overlooked the contributions of the Black women who helped build the WNBA.<\/p>\n\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a hit at me, because I\u2019m going to do me regardless. I\u2019m going to win this MVP, I\u2019ll win a gold medal, y\u2019all can\u2019t shake my r\u00e9sum\u00e9,\u201d Wilson told Gregory. \u201cIt was more so, let\u2019s not lose the recipe. Let\u2019s not lose the history. It was erased for a minute. And I don\u2019t like that. Because we have tons of women that have been through the grimiest of grimy things to get the league where it is today.\u201d<\/p>\n
This uneasy dynamic has been widely discussed in coverage of the WNBA, including by Clark herself, who told Gregory in Dec. ’24 that \u201cas a white person, there is privilege.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Clark\u2019s status as a primary ratings driver is not in dispute, the league fared quite well in \u201925 despite the Indiana guard missing most of the season due to injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes you need a proof in the pudding,\u201d Wilson told Gregory, who clarified that the four-time MVP was in no way cheering Clark’s injuries. \u201cThe biggest thing for us, and why I was so happy, is that we continue to rise to the occasion. This was just a matter of time for us to really bloom and blossom. Because we have been invested in each other and our craft for a very long time. It was just like, \u2018They\u2019re going to pay attention.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
More WNBA on Sports Illustrated<\/p>\n
FREE NEWSLETTER. SI BTN Newsletter. Start off your day with SI:CYMI. dark<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aces center A\u2019ja Wilson is already well on her way to a plaque in the Basketball Hall of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":{"0":"post-344747","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}