ESPN colleagues try to keep Caitlin Clark “in her place”

Shannon Sharpe passionately railed against how other commentators at ESPN downplayed Caitlin Clark's impact on the WNBA early in her rookie season.

Sharpe appeared as co-host on “First Take” on Mondays, speaking with Stephen A. Smith and Andraya Carter.

“A lot of that noise came from people who sat on that network,” Sharpe told his fellow panelists. “They tried to downplay her by saying, 'Well, you give her all this credit, what about the women who came before her?' What the women came before her, what they did, can't be taken away. That has nothing to do with Caitlin Clark. But there are a lot of people who tried to make sure Caitlin Clark stayed in her place, because if you give her all that shine, you downplay what they did. You can't downplay Maya Moore or Candace Parker or Lisa Leslie or Lauren Jackson or Diana Taurasi or any of the other big players.”

Sharpe did not name the people he was talking about on ESPN.

Earlier in the season, Carter was one of the ESPN women's basketball analysts who tried not to praise Clark.

When the Fever and Sky — featuring Clark's rival Angel Reese — both struggled to get off to a good start but their matches against each other drew excessive attention, Carter said, “I enjoy watching these two try to be successful in the WNBA. But if we're being completely honest, their teams are in the middle of the pack right now. Their teams are just very mediocre. They're eighth and ninth in the WNBA standings.”

In his “First Take” rant on Monday, Sharpe talked about all the attention Clark brought to the WNBA.

“Caitlin Clark’s work does not trivialize what they did,” he continued.

“But we should have given her the credit. We saw the ratings, we saw the merchandise sales, we saw the attendance, but you want to spin it around something else. … Caitlin Clark is a box office hit. She does that. And instead of giving her the credit, you try to spin it around something else: 'Oh, you're trashing the old guard. You've never talked about the old guard like that before.' No, I'm not going to let that pass.”

The games involving Clark and the Fever have seen nearly double the viewership and nearly triple the television ratings of any other game this season.

The Fever trail 0-1 in their best-of-three playoff series against the Sun. Game 2 is Wednesday night at Mohegan Sun Arena.