Former NBA great Paul Pierce watched Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark’s performance last night against LSU in the Elite Eight and made no bones about being impressed that a white player could be that great, especially against a team consisting of mostly black players. Doug reminds us that the trope of the nonathletic gym-rat always being a white kid has no basis in truth, but he understands why many are surprised to see Clark dominate when black athletes have dominated the sport for the last 50 years. She’s proving that the color of her skin has no bearing on her ability to hoop like no other.
Doug Gottlieb: “What Kendrick Perkins was getting at last year is the way that NBA players, most basketball people, view the sport. It’s that they view the white player as the inferior player; the inferior athlete. It doesn’t mean it’s always true. It also doesn’t mean that it’s not true. It’s how it’s viewed. And it’s one thing for Caitlin Clark to dominate the competition; it’s another thing to do it against a predominantly black team.”