The Disrespected

The Weekly Dis

An old man's ode to Caitlin Clark's art.

Michael Arace

15 Aug 2026 — 9 min read

Let me set up the buried lead – Fred Saunders is pissed about the way Caitlin Clark is being treated and how she is perceived as a basketball player – by beginning somewhere near the beginning, because you've got to understand that Fred knows a couple of things about the game.

Saunders starred in basketball and baseball at a Columbus high school, Mohawk, that no longer exists. He started his college basketball career at Southwestern Louisiana State, now the U. of Louisiana at Lafayette. When he was there from 1970-73, the Ragin' Cajuns under coach Ben Shipley were known as "The Best Team Money Could Buy." One of Saunders' teammates – an all-time Columbus high school star, Bo "Peep" Lamar out of East High – led the nation in scoring with 33.6 ppg, before there was a three-point line.

In 1973, a half century before NIL, the NCAA whacked the program with what is now known as the "death penalty."

Saunders, 6-7 and 210 pounds, transferred to Syracuse for his senior year of 1973-74. He was an undersized power forward but, like, he got after it, you know? He was one of these dudes who understood his role and everyone else's – he was a basketball player in the fullest sense. High IQ. Played shut-down defense, found the open man, sniffed out rebounds, sprung fast breaks. He also had a unique, little hook shot that fetched him a nickname, "Chocolate Thunder," before Darryl Dawkins ever laid claim to the moniker.

Saunders averaged 9.8 points and 9.8 boards his senior year. He was drafted by the Phoenix Suns and played a season-plus there before Boston Celtics GM Red Auerbach, not a bad judge of talent, reached out to get him.

Saunders played a year-plus for the Celtics before he was traded to the New Orleans Jazz, who were looking for help because "Pistol" Pete Maravich was on the injured list. Saunders helped the Jazz get to the playoffs, which seemed to greatly improve Pistol's health. And then Saunders was the odd man out in New Orleans.

Saunders' Rajin' Cajuns won nearly as many games as UCLA in the early 1970s. He saw the death penalty before anyone had a name for it. He played with a Celtics team that was studded with All-Stars and future Hall-of-Famers, like Dave Cowens and John Havlicek. He played with Pistol Pete, who was a basketball improvisationalist/savant of the rarest variety.

What I'm saying here is Fred Saunders has seen some shit. At age 75, he has lived a life. And he has something he wants to get off his chest. He senses Disrespect. He'll always have a home here.

"Caitlin Clark has a basketball game," Saunders said. "It ain't no male game or female game. She's got a basketball game. ... She's being persecuted unfairly, treated unfairly. She's not being respected."

Clark is often in the news for reasons that are only ancillary to basketball.

Geno Auriemma, who has won 11 national titles as coach of the UConn women's basketball team, said that "timing" was a major factor in feeding the furnace that drives the Caitlin money train. Clark seized the national consciousness as a junior, when UConn's Paige Bueckers lost for a season with a knee injury.

Former NBA forward Etan Thomas, an activist/critic/damned fine columnist, has been critical of Clark.

Caitlin Clark is every little white girl from elementary school I knew. They could throw a tantrum, stomp their feet, yell, talk disrespectfully, shed some tears and the teacher (Ms Scalet) would rub their backs, ask them what’s wrong, and tell them everything was going to be ok. pic.twitter.com/VRI0XCSbOy
— Etan Thomas (@etanthomas36) June 3, 2026

A regular contributor to The Guardian, Thomas is sensitive to racial double standards, and places his arguments into a larger perspective. Recently, he waded into the controversy over the flagrant foul which Sophie Cunningham, one of Clark's white Indiana Fever teammates, absorbed at the hand of DiJonai Carrington.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, arguably one of the three greatest basketball players who ever lived, is also known for a lifetime of activism and eloquence. His Substack column is outstanding.

Abdul-Jabbar took issue with Clark being referred to as the "face of the WNBA." In his Substack, he laid out his thoughts and why he found such an assertion offensive.

"My first reaction to this letter was to check the calendar and make sure it wasn’t April Fools’ Day. Eleven members of Congress wrote a letter calling Caitlin Clark 'the face of your league.' At least they got the marketing department’s talking point right," Abdul-Jabbar said.

"Don’t get me wrong: Clark is a very good, possibly even a great, player. But calling any one player the face of the league, absent the sort of on-court and cross-platform dominance of a Michael Jordan or a LeBron James, is an insult to an awful lot of great players, starting with A’ja Wilson, who has won three titles and four MVP awards in her first seven years in the WNBA."

Now, back to Fred

Saunders is a Black man who came of age in the late 1960s. He hears what Thomas and Abdul-Jabbar are saying about the racist element that seems to accompany any discussion about Clark. He might even agree with a lot of their arguments. He has seen some shit.

Yet, what he wants to talk about is basketball, and at the core of his beliefs is that Clark is a transformational player who requires no modifiers, be they gender, skin color, or anything else.

Saunders thinks Abdul-Jabbar belittles Clark as a "very good, possibly even great" player. Saunders slaps hand to forehead when he hears that. And if Kareem wants to talk about how Clark isn't the face of the league, or if hard fouls are just part of the game, Saunders will say "sheee-it" and talk about how the NBA issued a "Don't Touch Kareem" policy in the 1970s. Perspective.

Saunders was truly pissed that Clark was left off the U.S. Olympic team in 2024. Saunders sees the snub as a product of politics: Auriemma is the power broker, aging former UConn star Diana Taurasi is the beneficiary, and the U.S. coaching staff is complicit. But Saunders only mentions that stuff in passing.

"When they have to change to bigger venues to accommodate crowds because of you," Saunders said, "that means one thing: Y'ass is just good. Period."

Saunders wants to shout this: What Clark did at Iowa – carry an inferior team to the NCAA final and, in the process, turbocharge the reach and popularity of the game – is a 100-year storm; Clark is the face of the WNBA, as the financial returns attest; Clark is a flat-out baller, regardless, and ball don't lie.

Saunders is pissed that too few see that, or get caught up in other things.

"When we had Pistol Pete, Calvin Murphy and Rick Mount coming out college at the same time, it generated a lot of interest," Saunders said. "But this is different."

Maravich averaged 44.2 points in three years at Louisiana State; Murphy averaged 33.1 at Niagara; Mount averaged 32.3 at Purdue; they all matriculated to the NBA in 1970.

"Pistol was a genius, can't take nothing away from him, hard as he worked. Shit," Saunders said. "But Pistol, Calvin, Mount – they didn't spread the wealth. Caitlin spreads the wealth."

What Saunders sees in Clark is a lot of Steve Nash, a back-to-back NBA MVP and Hall of Famer who, like Clark, played soccer as a kid. Nash was a great shooter but not quick enough to create the space a shooting guard needs. He played the point. He had the ball in his hands – which made him even better because smart soccer players see the whole field, and create space for everyone.

"Nash controlled the ball, distributed it and he could shoot," Saunders said. "Don Nelson (RIP) went after Nash because he wanted to run baseline-to-baseline, put the ball in Nash's hands, run until one guy gets open and if nobody gets open, Nash can shoot. Like Bob Cousy used to do with Red Auerbach."

It's like speed jazz.

"When Caitlin was at Iowa, if any of (her teammates) had any hands, they would've won that shit," Saunders said. "They left 14 points on the floor (in the 2024 national title game). When she got to Indiana, same problem. They've got to learn to play with her. They're still leaving points on the floor, but they're getting better. Just get open, and Caitlin will get them the ball. Don't get open, and Caitlin will shoot. And we know she can shoot.

"Anything else you want to talk about is just time on social media. Caitlin is strictly about the sport, the athletics. It's the way she was raised. Nothing is going to stop her. She's going to overcome all the jealousy. What I worry about is her getting bitter and walking away before her time."

Other longtime sportswriters will tell you this: One of the hidden perks of doing what we do, or have done, is talking to people who know some shit, and hearing something different.

I know Geno Auriemma, just a little bit, and I like him, and his record speaks for itself. Paisano. Watching Diana Taurasi play was a transformative experience for me. I hold Abdul-Jabbar in the highest esteem as a human being; he is a towering figure of the 20th and 21st centuries. I admire Etan Thomas' thoughtful columns, which ring with clarity. Pistol was a god to people of a certain age. Absolute legend. I thought Mark Price, when healthy, was better than Steve Nash (and John Stockton). Discuss.

Saunders brought all of them into one conversation, mostly because he was pissed off at most of them. Then he dropped a Cousy reference. That's outstanding. I love Fred.

"Caitlin's transition game is automatic," Saunders said. "She shoots a three that rivals the NBA three. She doesn't know how to play defense yet; it's her only weakness. Oh, she'll steal the ball every now and then, but she needs to work a little harder and concentrate on her 'D' because when you have a defensive game, offense comes even easier. Like with Mike, Kobe and LeBron."

That's a good place to end.

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