The three-time league champion doesn’t understand the resentment behind Clark’s impact

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WNBA legend Candace Parker will not be joining other league veterans or retired stars who’ve shown hostility toward the game’s newest stars, specifically Caitlin Clark, and the new faces of the league’s effort to grow women’s basketball. Clark’s rising popularity has brought significant viewership increase to the WNBA and millions of new fans who previously had no interest in the league.

There’s no animosity toward Clark’s record-setting endorsement deals or the impact she and others are having on the sport, Parker says.

“You know, it’s so crazy to me because I’m asked so many times if I’m resentful in any type of way for where the WNBA is right now,” Parker said this week on ESPN’s ‘The Take’ with Stephen A. Smith. “My job was to leave the game better than I came into it. You think Cheryl Miller is resentful for me that I had a league to play in? No, she’s being the mentor that she is, and she’s supporting and loving and sitting courtside cheering on JuJu Watkins. And I’m doing the same for Caitlin Clark and all the women in the WNBA.”

Parker, a three-time WNBA champion and seven-time all-star, retired last spring following one season with the Las Vegas Aces. She’s now a front-facing analyst for a league that has never seen more momentum both on the court and off.

When Clark entered the league last summer as the No. 1 pick in the draft after being one of college basketball’s most lethal scorers of all time, her arrival was met with questions from Diana Taurasi, Sheryl Swoopes and others about whether her starpower and dominance would continue.

Taurasi later walked back her infamous “reality is coming” opinion of Clark after her Rookie of the Year showing last season with the Indiana Fever. Swoopes apologized with a text message after initially saying the former Iowa standout led the nation in scoring because she was a volume shooter who played five seasons.

LSU guard Flau’jae Johnson, who went head-to-head with Clark twice in the NCAA Tournament, shared a trending opinion of Clark and her impact on women’s basketball before she was an immediate star in the WNBA.

“It’s good for the game,” Johnson said last year on The Baller Alert Show. “Caitlin Clark, say what you want, she’s a star. She can shoot that thing. She’s got the green light. America has gravitated to her, and it’s only just pulling the women up more and more and more, so I love it.”

In December, Washington Mystics co-owner Sheila Johnson criticized TIME Magazine’s choice of Clark on their cover as “Athlete of the Year,” saying the league has “so much talent” that is “unrecognized” due to the focus on the Fever’s top player.

Iowa coach Lisa Bluder, who watched Clark develop from a perimeter assassin to all-around player over four seasons in the Big Ten, doesn’t understand the negativity surrounding the sharp shooter. Like Parker, she says the spotlight on Clark is great for women’s basketball.

“It’s silly to me that anyone tries to take away from something that’s so good in your sport right now,” Bluder said during an interview with USA Today after Johnson’s criticism. “This is a person that has really helped athletics and women’s sports in a way that nobody has helped women’s sports like Billy Jean King. Sometimes, we used to tell our team when Caitlin’s light shines on her, it shines on all of us. I think everybody else needs to embrace that a little bit better.”

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