Doug Gottlieb Is Unfairly Being Ridiculed For Pointing Out Caitlin Clark's 'Mechanical Flaw'
Caitlin Clark is the all-time leading scorer in college basketball and has helped lift women's hoops as a whole to heights the game has never experienced. Those two facts shouldn't mean that she can't receive a bit of constructive criticism, but based on Doug Gottlieb's mentions on social media, some people haven't come to that realization.
Gottlieb, a college basketball analyst for Fox Sports, recently shared a photo of Clark getting ready to release a jumpshot. Along with the photo was his caption which read, "The amount of work it takes to be consistent through her mechanical flaw is really impressive. If you were advising her, would you fix it in the offseason?" before tagging the well-known Mike Procopio.
You could make the argument that Gottlieb was actually complimenting Clark's abilities on the hardwood with his mention of how impressive it is that she can seemingly score at will while not having the most-beautiful shooting forms. He quite literally noted how much work she's put in to become the scorer she is.
The majority of folks didn't read Gottlieb's post in that type of light, they keyed in on the phrase "mechanical flaw," and eviscerated him. Some folks who constantly live their lives in a pissed-off state even accused him of being misogynistic.
While Gottlieb probably wishes he never fired off his post about Clark's "mechanical flaw," the outrage towards him for sharing his opinion is just as outrageous as the over-the-top reactions themselves.
Clark's shooting form is not perfect, which is all Gottlieb was referring to. He didn't call her bad, overrated, or insinuate that she isn't outrageously talented, he simply made a comment about her form. That's it.
I'm not a basketball junkie, but I do have eyes and have watched enough basketball over the years to know that nobody is teaching someone to shoot with Clark's exact form. Go put the ball in the basket like she does, sure, but don't copy her motion. Two things can be true at once, believe it or not.
All the greats in every sport are constantly working on their form. Tiger Woods has transformed his swing countless times throughout his career, plenty of successful NFL quarterbacks have tweaked something in the throwing motions, baseball players morph their swings, and tennis players are always changing something.
When it's all said and done, Clark changing her shooting form or not over the years will be irrelevant. All that matters is her ability to score at a high rate and win championships, because that's all anyone remembers anyway.