WNBA Champion Criticizes Ice Cube Over BIG3 Offer To Caitlin Clark

29/03/2024 23:40

As Iowa's Caitlin Clark continues to make history in college basketball, she recently received a massive $5 million offer to play in the BIG3 basketball league by rapper, actor and league owner Ice Cube.

Some were happy to see such a lucrative offer made to a women's basketball player, but one former WNBA champion is criticizing Cube's choice to offer Clark the big-time deal.

"If you open the article and see what he said was his reasoning, he wanted to provide more opportunities for WNBA players and provide opportunities to not go overseas," said Lexie Brown, who plays for the Los Angeles Sparks and won a title with the Chicago Sky.

"So, you offer the contract to a player who's not even in the WNBA."

Brown also said that the offer to play in the BIG3 is "offensive" to the European countries and teams that pay WNBA players big contracts to come and play in their offseason.

"The BIG3 does not happen during overseas season so that doesn't make sense. 

You pretty much offended all of the European countries that opened the door to us, give us a lot of money, a lot of love, and a lot of experience by calling them dismal and dubious," Brown added.

Brown said that she understood that Cube's offer to Clark was a "business decision," and she was fine with that. 

Her issue with the offer was more about the fact that the BIG3 owner attempted to use the offer as a method of uplifting women's athletes.

"I think he's trying to make a business decision, which he's a businessman, that makes sense," Brown said.

But to mask it in this 'I want to uplift and support WNBA players and women athletes' is kind of a cop-out I think."

Clark is unlikely to accept the offer, and she is still focusing on the remainder of the NCAA Tournament. 

Her Iowa Hawkeyes are set to face Colorado Saturday in the Sweet Sixteen, as a potential national championship rematch looms against LSU in the Elite Eight.