How exhausting has the Caitlin Clark discourse become?

ESPN’s Elle Duncan joined The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz on Wednesday and the topic turned to the never-ending discourse around Caitlin Clark.

Duncan joined the network’s WNBA coverage this season after an extremely well-received Women’s NCAA Tournament run with Andraya Carter and Chiney Ogwumike. She confirms for Dan that the last 10 days have been exhausting, bringing her to invoke John Coffey’s “I’m tired boss” line from The Green Mile. Bottom line, Elle’s just exhausted. And she says she’s actually a little bit disappointed in herself. Why you ask? Because she says she naively thought with all the momentum and good feels from Women’s NCAA basketball space she had the hope that it would finally translate up to the WNBA when it really hadn’t before. She says she naively thought that all the attention that Clark was going to bring was going to help shine a spotlight on everyone else and it was going to help the league grow and everything would be great and everyone would get to see how awesome the W is. Instead, she says it has become like everything else in the United States — a total and complete culture war where everyone new to the party is showing up with pitchforks, which doesn’t sound like a party Elle wants to be at.

Dan finds it crazy that Elle and even Lucy have already arrived at this place only weeks into Clark’s WNBA career. While admitting that she, like many others, is new to the WNBA space, Elle notes that a difference is that she is asking a lot of questions while also doing a lot of listening and research. But somehow we’ve arrived at a place where Elle says either you show complete fealty to Clark or you’re a jealous, bitter hater with no in-between. She says it’s frustrating because everyone has taken to their respective sides and there seems to be little room to listen.

Dan wonders if it’s possible that part of the reason why is because men want to be part of the conversation now and it’s easy to do things like All-Star/Olympic snubs and Caitlin as an entry point with everyone saying that they liked it better before the men joined the conversation.

In a word, yes. Elle says all her girl group chats are wondering what’s wrong with the men. What has happened to them, they’re losing it! And that’s the frustrating part, Elle says. She says she’s not a gatekeeper, telling the new people that they should have nothing to say. But the problem is that these new people don’t really have anything else to talk about because they’re not really doing the research, they’re not really watching the games and they’re not reaching out the experts at their disposal to ask what are some storylines worth talking about. So instead, they keep going back to their same old bag of tricks — Caitlin is being targeted, she’s the best thing to ever happen to these women. She actually was excited when the Olympic roster leaked because they were set to have a WNBA Countdown show and she though Andraya and Chiney should get to be the first voices to talk about this, before the men get their hands on this. She wanted to let these pragmatic, reasonable, well-researched women discuss why Clark was left off — not snubbed, Elle emphasizes — from the Olympic roster. But sadly, that didn’t matter because the people with the biggest platforms still want to throw Clark into the A-Block of their shows but in a way that they think is digestible to their fans, which is going to the one thing they know about — besmirching and denigrating an entire group of women because you think you’re doing it in a way you think is promoting Clark, which is beyond strange to Elle, too.

Check out the full Best Of video above, and tune into The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz Monday-Friday at 11 a.m. ET on DraftKings Network!

SHOW BREAKDOWN

Local Hour: Keep It On Green

• Today’s Cast: Dan, Stu, Chris, Lucy, Billy, Tony, Jess. Our quest to find Panthers fans continues as we debut Jeremy Tache and the Elusive Panthers’ Fan. Jeremy is joining us from the Everglades to try and talk to anybody that is excited about the Panthers and trust us, the excitement is palpable. Before we get our finger on the pulse, we discuss tonight’s Game 3 of the NBA Finals and how it could impact Jayson Tatum’s legacy. Also, Kristaps Porzingis has a rare injury that Stugotz miraculously can pronounce and it could have a major impact on the series. Dan’s dentist story from yesterday has been called into question and the discussion of it leads to the crew sharing some of their worst experiences at the dentist. What happened to Tupac?

Big Suey: R.I.P. Jerry West

• Jess thinks we are running out of characters in the simulation after Scott Hanson was caught up in a viral video while witnessing a car crash. How did the watermelon get there? Dan breaks down the geography of South Florida and wonders why there is always a care on fire on Only in Dade. Plus, we check back in with Jeremy on his quest of the elusive Panthers’ fan. The show reacts to the sad news that The Logo, Jerry West, has passed away at the age of 86. There is no easy way to transition out of that but PK Subban is here to discuss the Stanley Cup Final and lighten the mood. PK shares his thoughts on joining the media world in his post-playing days, whether or not Leon Draisaitl should be suspended for his hit on Aleksander Barkov, how the Panthers shut down the Oilers and the time he most lost his cool as an NHL player.

Hour 1: The Shirtless Rollercoaster With Evan Rodrigues

• We check back in with Jeremy who continues to struggle to find any singular Panthers fan that is excited about the Stanley Cup Final. Joey Chestnut has been banned from this year’s Nathan’s Hot Dog eating contest and Billy is pretty skeptical about it. Are we entering a Snoop Dogg quitting weed situation? Stugotz has his top five athletes that connote hot dogs and we discuss Aaron Rodgers deciding not to show up to Jets’ mini camp. Then, the hero of Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final, Evan Rodrigues, joins the show to discuss his two-goal performance and how the Panthers stifled the Oilers. He also makes a promise to us for his next appearance IF the Panthers win the Stanley Cup (can everybody please stop trying to jinx the Panthers!)

Hour 2: Somebody Be Normal For 5 Seconds

• Dan is shocked that Lucy is exhausted by everything surrounding Caitlin Clark. Lucy just wants everybody to be normal for five seconds, something that currently appears impossible. Dan has a stat of the day about the lack of success the Lakers had over the last decade that leads us to wonder about the actual quality of the job that Dan Hurley turned down. Chris Wittyngham was insanely wrong about the Florida Panthers and we revisit just how incredibly wrong he was by replaying an old parade of gasbags. Jess has an idea for how we can allow him back onto the Panwagon which would come with a price at a possible Stanley Cup parade (can we PLEASE stop talking about this hypothetical parade?!) Then, Elle Duncan—who is also exhausted by all of the narratives surrounding Caitlin Clark—joins the show to discuss the wild last few weeks surrounding the WNBA and the top five threats made by white men.

Postgame Show: One Last Check-In With Jeremy

• Lucy had an epic stumble over the name Arnold Palmer that we enjoy. Plus, we check back in with Jeremy one last time to see if he can find us a Florida Panthers fan. He is getting poured on at Hollywood Beach but it will not deter him from talking to somebody who wants to discuss Samson Reinhart, Carter Verhaeghe and Eetu Luostarinen.

VIDEO:

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