Caitlin Clark is only in her third year as a pro, and yet, she’s already facing “championship or bust” expectations from the public.
The Indiana Fever’s 2026 season ended on Thursday night with a loss to the Las Vegas Aces. They had no answer for A’ja Wilson, who had 36 points in this highly-anticipated elimination game. Immediately after this game went final, Clark received backlash from the public.
On Saturday afternoon, Rohan Nadkarni of NBC News wrote a column about Clark that featured this headline: “After another early exit, Caitlin Clark’s career is still lacking playoff success.”
Nadkarni pointed out that Clark finished Game 3 with 18 points on just 6-of-18 shooting from the field. He also noted that Clark hasn’t made it past the first round of the playoffs yet in her career. The Fever, however, made it to the WNBA semifinals without her in 2025.
Though it’s not much of a surprise, NBC’s column on Clark was trashed by her fans this weekend.
Lucas Peltier-Imagn Images.
“Caitlin missed almost the entire season last year. So this season was essentially her second season. A’ja didn’t win her first title until her fifth season. Taurasi won her first in her fourth season. Y’all need to calm down,” one person replied. “It doesn’t matter to people like this tho. Even if she wins a title, these people will claim that her teammates are the reason she won it and not her. Some people just hate her for their own reasons and they can’t see past it.”
“There is an absolute concerted effort by everyone to [expletive] on everything Caitlin Clark and I cannot figure out why,” a second person wrote.
“Caitlin Clark is officially in her Aaron Judge era,” another person joked.
“It literally took Aja 5 years to win her first chip but okay,” a fan commented.
“Well give her a break. She just got there,” another fan said.
The future is still incredibly bright for Caitlin Clark.
Clark, 24, proved this year that she’s capable of taking her skills to the next level. The former No. 1 pick from Iowa averaged a career-high 22.3 points per game this season.
Could Clark improve defensively and cut down on the turnovers? Sure, but ripping her lack of championship rings when she’s just 93 games into her career is just wild.
Do you think Clark will be a champion sooner than later?
