​Caitlin Clark is once again at the center of WNBA headlines after NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar weighed in on her being labeled the face of the league.On July 8, a group of 11 Republican lawmakers, led by U.S. Rep. August Pfluger of Texas, sent a letter to WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert demanding that the league protect Clark and that there be “accountability” for her multiple attacks.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementRecent reports by the Sports Business Journal indicate that Cathy Engelbert’s original plan after Alyssa Thomas’ foul on Caitlin Clark was not to suspend the Phoenix Mercury forward, but she was ultimately persuaded to do so.Abdul-Jabbar wrote on his Substack, a publishing platform for writers, podcasters, and video creators, about the recent debate surrounding Clark’s status as the face of the WNBA after a congressional letter referred to her as such.”My first reaction to this letter was to check the calendar and make sure it wasn’t April Fools’ Day,” Abdul-Jabbar wrote on July 13.He added, “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. 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.”AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe recent event that inspired the recent wave of criticism of the league’s handling of Clark was the June 24 matchup of the Indiana Fever and the Phoenix Mercury, in which Caitlin Clark dove to the floor for a loose ball when Thomas landed on her, with Thomas’ arm appearing to make contact with Clark’s throat.Thomas was fined $1,000 and suspended for one game, but she revealed that she received death threats and criticized Engelbert, who sent a statement hours later condemning hate.However, Abdul-Jabbar spoke to the hate Thomas received in his Substack post.” I don’t know what lesson anyone is going to take away from this incident, but if I were the instructor, the one I’d want to teach is to people in Congress and the commissioner’s office: take the constant deliberate, and premeditated online abuse of players as seriously as you take the occasional incidents that occur on the court in the heat of the moment,” Abdul-Jabbar wrote.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHe continued, “We have systems in place for dealing with what happens to players during the game, but we need to get better at helping them when the games are over.”