There's an art to being a good teammate

Being somebody’s teammate is an unusual relationship. It’s akin to being family or a coworker if you work in a really high stress environment.

The metaphors used by athletes support the comparisons. They talk of family and brotherhood, treating the job like “another day at the office” and battles against opposition in another uniform from a different place.

You don’t pick your family, you don’t pick your coworkers and you don’t pick your teammates. Despite this, you share a common objective and are forced to search for a way to not only coexist, but thrive, with them despite differences you will inevitably have.

Sometimes this is easy. Sometimes you have a teammate, coworker, brother, sister or cousin whose personality meshes with yours. What would be a likely friendship under any normal scenario is only strengthened by the shared experiences and objectives.

Other times, it can be really challenging. Maybe your personality doesn’t align with theirs or maybe you outright don’t like them or them you.

Y’all play for the same team, are fighting the same fires, are working on the same project at work or coping with the same parents who just don’t understand and you want to “throw hands” and fight. Maybe you even do. You are still expected to inevitably bridge the gap enough to achieve the collective goals.

As a teammate, I have been prepared to fight beside and for someone because they are wearing the same color jersey I am. Someone I’d have honestly preferred to fight against as opposed to for. He probably deserved what would have been coming to him, but I had to have his back and I expected him to have mine.

I mention all this because lots of folks are talking about Caitlin Clark, the WNBA and the fouls. They play 90s style basketball in that league and the contact is surprising many who are just now paying attention. What is surprising me, as it relates to Catlin Clark specifically, is how her teammates don’t seem to stand up for her.

She is not the only one getting fouled hard. They really do play physical defense in the WNBA and with the number of viewers that Clark brings to every game she plays, she is understandably getting every opponent’s best defensive effort.

When she gets knocked around though, her teammates are supposed to be helping her up and ensuring that opponents don’t get to run their mouths to her after the fact. That’s what teammates of other players on other teams do in the WNBA and the NBA and high school basketball.

I don’t know what the team environment is in Indiana, but if I’m a fan of the Fever or Caitlin Clark, I’m more worried about the chemistry of that team than I am the way opponents are treating her.

Indiana had the top pick in the draft for a reason so they clearly had some players who struggle to score points and play defense. If you can’t get buckets or stop others from doing so, the least you could do is step up for your teammate. If the coaches and/or GM aren’t saying so in the locker room, therein lies the problem.