While the meteoric rise of the WNBA has mostly been positive, the popularity of the league has led to player scrutiny.
Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark has taken the brunt of the discourse, which intensified in June after her name was cited by online commenters to degrade other WNBA players.
After the Fever's 91-84 win over the Atlanta Dream on Thursday, the 22-year-old was asked to address the racist and misogynistic remarks.
"People should not be using my name to push those agendas. It's disappointing. It's not acceptable," Clark said in a video posted Thursday by James Boyd of The Athletic. "... Treating every single woman in this league with the same amount of respect, I think, it's just a basic human thing that everybody should do."
Clark's comments came after Connecticut Sun guard DiJonai Carrington criticized the Iowa graduate for not doing more to speak out about people using her name inappropriately.
Clark added that what people say online was "not something [she] can control."
Recently, Clark, the No. 1 pick in this season's WNBA draft, has also made headlines for being cut from the U.S. Olympic roster, and for a number of hard fouls she has endured in the league.
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