Sheryl Swoopes Saga

[cdubbz]

Yikes. Plan on posting the whole timeline at some point of what's been going on, but think it's worth a thread. Swoopes has been accused of throwing shade at Caitlin Clark on her appearance on Gilbert Arenas podcast 'Gil's Arena' and most notably saying Clark had an extra year of college due to covid which diminishes her scoring record as well as overstating her shooting statistics (she said CC shoots 40x a game and gets her points off volume shooting).

Swoopes has since made peace with Clark via text, but in recent days it's been on fire again as Swoopes was not present for Fever v Wings broadcast while Nancy Lieberman was asked to commentate where she praised Clark and has appeared on the Stephen A Smith show to speak about it. Swoopes has been harassed by fans via social media and has been firing back as well as responding to SAS and Nancy Lieberman.

On Angel Reese & Caitlin Clark entering the WNBA

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Swoopes apologizes to CC via text

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Swoopes on Charter flights

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[cdubbz]

Nancy Lieberman discussing speaking with Swoopes on her inaccurate comments on CC. Nancy says they're currently not speaking to each other.

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Sheryl Swoopes responds to Lieberman on twitter

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Swoopes bringing up this quote that Lieberman said on Michelle Beadle podcast (Lieberman mentions this on SAS show)

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[theforumblue]

since the gilbert's podcast appearance she has also said that:

Katie Loue Samuelson was more critical for indiana's success than CC.

downplayed CC's success by saying indiana has much better team than the Sky, and that CC is simply doing what was expected of her as #1 pick. (never mind that whatever DT and sheryl herself was saying about CC will hit a "reality" brick wall i guess).

recently she praised many on the fever but didn't even mention CC when discussing fever's winning ways since the break.

as for the broadcast, she was asked to not do the game because she tweeted in support of the cornerback for the chicago sky DeShields, seemingly referring to the crazier fever fans as "evil people" .

she did post an alleged text exchange between her and CC after the arenas' show where she apologized. to me all that shows is that she's a bit two faced really.

just a very insecure and defensive person.

[jc23]

For sure she started off as a bit of a hater. Thats fine. Then it was leaked that she apologized to CC via text. thats fine. What happens is she got a ton of hate on her social media feeds and has since fully embraced a them vs us mentality. That is never a good way to go about life. It has to be embarrassing to be replaced for a basketball game because of your "basketball" opinions.

With the current explosion of the wnba people are going to start getting paid which means more tv talent will be incoming. You do not want to miss this train because your unwilling to base your opinion on facts vs emotions. South Park teaches us that trolls can not be defeated, only fed. Starve the bastards by squashing things publicly and go back to calling basketball like the hall of famer you are. I mean Caitlin is going to have a long ass career so...

[KembaWalker]

CC has been hated on and disrespected by the entire women’s basketball ecosystem that she single-handedly grew exponentially overnight

Nothing much to do but laugh as they embarrass themselves. I’m still laughing at Taurasi and team USA

[Ice Man]

CC has been hated on and disrespected by the entire women’s basketball ecosystem

No, no, no, and no. Please, no. Statements like these aren't helping us get to a better place.

[G R E Y]

Yeah it is a bad look. Downplaying achievements of a rookie pulling the league up (and yes of course benefitting from the foundations of those who came before her) at this point sound like downright jealousy, offering thinly veiled grasping at specious analysis as justification.

You don't get this in the men's league. It seems more fraternal, at least publicly. I don't understand the bullying of CC on and off the court. It's a weird turf war of how big a piece of attention pie she's getting (nevermind she's helping to grow it)/initiation hazing/putting someone in their place. Very bizarre disappointing behaviour.

[Ghetto Gospel]

Nancy Lieberman discussing speaking with Swoopes on her inaccurate comments on CC. Nancy says they're currently not speaking to each other.

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i don't like sheryl swoopes behavior, but i also don't like nancy lieberman coming onto this show and airing this personal stuff out and fanning the flames. keep the private stuff to yourselves.

[Ghetto Gospel]

With the current explosion of the wnba people are going to start getting paid which means more tv talent will be incoming. You do not want to miss this train because your unwilling to base your opinion on facts vs emotions.

i think she's in too deep and the fact that she lost a lifelong friendship in nancy lieberman over this lets me know that. it ain't even like caitlin clark wronged her in anyway, it just seems like there's a lot of bitterness in her heart right now and she's looking like a generational hater

[jc23]

Nancy Lieberman discussing speaking with Swoopes on her inaccurate comments on CC. Nancy says they're currently not speaking to each other.

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i don't like sheryl swoopes behavior, but i also don't like nancy lieberman coming onto this show and airing this personal stuff out and fanning the flames. keep the private stuff to yourselves.

the one person in all of this drama who has never fanned the flames is the person this all centers around. Total professional and has gone out of her way to only say positive things about every player both current and past.

[cdubbz]

With the current explosion of the wnba people are going to start getting paid which means more tv talent will be incoming. You do not want to miss this train because your unwilling to base your opinion on facts vs emotions.

i think she's in too deep and the fact that she lost a lifelong friendship in nancy lieberman over this lets me know that. it ain't even like caitlin clark wronged her in anyway, it just seems like there's a lot of bitterness in her heart right now and she's looking like a generational hater

Nancy said a lot of level headed things on the Stephen A show -- You don't have to like every player and be in love with certain players, but you have to be a professional. Nancy also revealed T-spoon called her up after her comments after the Carter/Clark flagrant and said they were able to have a conversation about it instead of just ending a friendship like what happened with Swoopes.

Just weird dynamics coming from this situation and some slightly blown out of proportion, but have we seen this in the mens game at all? Shaq hating on Dwight was elite level hating.

[cdubbz]

South Park teaches us that trolls can not be defeated, only fed. Starve the bastards by squashing things publicly and go back to calling basketball like the hall of famer you are. I mean Caitlin is going to have a long ass career so...

Love life lessons from South Park and this one is very true especially in this case.

[MrDollarBills]

I'm so sick of this drama fueled garbage overshadowing good basketball.

Swoopes should be f*cking ashamed of herself. She's being messy and she is hurting the league with this stuff because then you have culture war trolls who don't watch or care about the WNBA rushing to come in and sat, "See? We told you they all hate Caitlin" when it's the furthest thing from the truth.

CC has done nothing or said anything to warrant this behavior from her. It's absurd and embarrassing that this has happened. Especially coming from someone whose work in the sport is the very reason we're all talking about the league right now!

No one should have to kiss Caitlin Clark's ass. Let's be clear. If you have criticism of her game, say it and stand on it. Especially if you're supposed to be an analyst.

But all this nonsense going on? It adds nothing. It doesn't help the WNBA, it doesn't foster constructive discourse surrounding women's basketball, and worst of all it feeds the trolls who want nothing more than to watch the league implode because they hate women and minorities.

Good job Sheryl. The kid has done nothing to you and now you hurt yourself, her, and the league.

[MrDollarBills]

With the current explosion of the wnba people are going to start getting paid which means more tv talent will be incoming. You do not want to miss this train because your unwilling to base your opinion on facts vs emotions.

i think she's in too deep and the fact that she lost a lifelong friendship in nancy lieberman over this lets me know that. it ain't even like caitlin clark wronged her in anyway, it just seems like there's a lot of bitterness in her heart right now and she's looking like a generational hater

She looks like a fool. Losing a life long friendship over having hate for someone who has done nothing wrong to you in any capacity is weirdo, clown behavior.

She needs to take a break and reevaluate why she has these feelings and why she's allowed them to bring her reputation into the toilet.

[KembaWalker]

CC has been hated on and disrespected by the entire women’s basketball ecosystem

No, no, no, and no. Please, no. Statements like these aren't helping us get to a better place.

not sure what that even means. Not my job to get womens basketball in a better place, its theirs. too theres only one of them thats been doing that job. Obviously, I don't need to specify. You already know

[Fairview4Life]

I went and actually listened to the Arenas pod and I have no idea what's so bad about anything she said:

https://youtu.be/gp1sdiGlBuM?t=7581

She was wrong about 4 vs 5 years and so that point about breaking records (which would have been perfectly defensible) is wrong. Which is what she apologized about and you could even see her basically getting there as they tried to figure out what year Clark was currently in/the covid year stuff. The rest of her comments all seem perfectly fine to me? I don't know why she'd apologize about the 40 shots comment. She didn't say she gets all her points from volume shooting. Her point was that Clark coming into the league on a team with vets wouldn't be as ball dominant/shoot as much as she does in college so she couldn't score like how she scored in college in the WNBA immediately. She said similar things about Angel Reese not being able to come in and dominate immediately. Her opinion about Clark's pro prospects was higher. Nothing there is a wild take or hating on Clark at all. Even if she ended up being wrong about what Clark's been able to turn into by the end of her rookie season. She was actually right initially, until her 3's started dropping more frequently.

Anyway, I find a lot of this discussion is people on messageboards or youtube posting very small clips without context or editorializing and telling everyone what people said and in some of these cases the characterization doesn't really hold up. The algorithm is working on those culture war clicks.

[LouisLitt]

I went and actually listened to the Arenas pod and I have no idea what's so bad about anything she said:

https://youtu.be/gp1sdiGlBuM?t=7581

She was wrong about 4 vs 5 years and so that point about breaking records (which would have been perfectly defensible) is wrong. Which is what she apologized about and you could even see her basically getting there as they tried to figure out what year Clark was currently in/the covid year stuff. The rest of her comments all seem perfectly fine to me? I don't know why she'd apologize about the 40 shots comment. She didn't say she gets all her points from volume shooting. Her point was that Clark coming into the league on a team with vets wouldn't be as ball dominant/shoot as much as she does in college so she couldn't score like how she scored in college in the WNBA immediately. She said similar things about Angel Reese not being able to come in and dominate immediately. Her opinion about Clark's pro prospects was higher. Nothing there is a wild take or hating on Clark at all. Even if she ended up being wrong about what Clark's been able to turn into by the end of her rookie season. She was actually right initially, until her 3's started dropping more frequently.

Anyway, I find a lot of this discussion is people on messageboards or youtube posting very small clips without context or editorializing and telling everyone what people said and in some of these cases the characterization doesn't really hold up. The algorithm is working on those culture war clicks.

She was very clearly trying to downplay CC's accomplishments in college.

"She's 25"
"She took 5 years"
"She takes 40 shots a game"

So essentially she knew nothing about CC, but felt the need to downplay her breaking the record with 3 completely fabricated comments.

No one just makes up multiple ways to bring down someone's accomplishments unless they have a problem with them.

She doesn't have to apologize for anything, she should just come out and say she doesn't like her.

It would be a weird thing to say, but I'm sure a lot of people would prefer that over whatever the hell she's doing right now.

[Fairview4Life]

She didn’t say those things in that way though. You stripped out the context completely. You’re also just being silly when you say she doesn’t know anything about her and she was using fabricated comments. I posted the link for a reason. Go listen to it, instead of just being mad about what you think she said. It’s all fairly reasonable stuff. She thinks records should be broken over the same period of time, to be considered legit. That’s a defensible position. She was just confused about how many years Clark had played because of COVID and apologized to her for getting that wrong. The 40 shots a game thing was hyperbole to make the point that she wouldn’t be the focal point in the W like she was in college so she didn’t think she’d be able to score in the pros like she did in college right away. Again, that’s not hating on her. She was less enthusiastic about Reese, but this turned into her somehow hating Caitlin Clark.

It’s kind of crazy to me that people can hear fairly normal commentary like that in a world where guys like SAS exist, or Skip Bayless yells about Lebron every 3 minutes, and call it hating.

[cupcakesnake]

CC has been hated on and disrespected by the entire women’s basketball ecosystem that she single-handedly grew exponentially overnight

Nothing much to do but laugh as they embarrass themselves. I’m still laughing at Taurasi and team USA

So much of this "disrespect" is narrative spin and social media backlash from CC's unprecedentedly massive fanbase. Any scrutiny over the actual events reveal much to do about nothing. The Swoopes thing is a perfect example.

Also this kind of thing is pretty normal for mega stars in basketball. Michael Jordan got it worse from NBA players, but obviously not the social media part. Remember when they froze him out in the all-star game?

The "entire women's basketball ecosystem" is super excited about Clark as a basketball player, and her role in expanding the audience for the sport. This is a very rare moment in sport. Some people are being weird about it, but what do you expect?

[cdubbz]

I went and actually listened to the Arenas pod and I have no idea what's so bad about anything she said:

https://youtu.be/gp1sdiGlBuM?t=7581

She was wrong about 4 vs 5 years and so that point about breaking records (which would have been perfectly defensible) is wrong. Which is what she apologized about and you could even see her basically getting there as they tried to figure out what year Clark was currently in/the covid year stuff. The rest of her comments all seem perfectly fine to me? I don't know why she'd apologize about the 40 shots comment. She didn't say she gets all her points from volume shooting. Her point was that Clark coming into the league on a team with vets wouldn't be as ball dominant/shoot as much as she does in college so she couldn't score like how she scored in college in the WNBA immediately. She said similar things about Angel Reese not being able to come in and dominate immediately. Her opinion about Clark's pro prospects was higher. Nothing there is a wild take or hating on Clark at all. Even if she ended up being wrong about what Clark's been able to turn into by the end of her rookie season. She was actually right initially, until her 3's started dropping more frequently.

Anyway, I find a lot of this discussion is people on message boards or youtube posting very small clips without context or editorializing and telling everyone what people said and in some of these cases the characterization doesn't really hold up. The algorithm is working on those culture war clicks.

Yeah I agree with a lot of what you said especially the last part. I think Swoopes doesn't HELP herself though by some of what she has said or hasn't said.

Here is a tweet responding to a fan of hers who looked up to her. She doesn't hate CC, but she dislikes her bad fans and her responses or lack of responses feels to spite them which is where we are at now.

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