What did Kareem Abdul-Jabbar say about Caitlin Clark? Debate explained

NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has thoughts about Indiana Fever superstar Caitlin Clark.

The NBA Hall of Famer has a Substack where he muses on everything from basketball to politics. Unsurprisingly, he had thoughts about the discourse surrounding Phoenix Mercury guard Alyssa Thomas' foul on Clark. Abdul-Jabbar took issue with a letter that several GOP lawmakers recently penned to the WNBA asking for accountability concerning "attacks" on Clark.

The Lakers legend was not fond of the GOP lawmakers referencing Clark as “the face of your league". He also aimed at elements of racism that he says were insinuated by the letter.

"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 the 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 in his Substack.

Here's more on why Abdul-Jabbar's comments on Clark have sparked ongoing debate in recent days:

What did Kareem Abdul-Jabbar say about Caitlin Clark?

Abdul-Jabbar took issue with Clark being referred to as the "face of the WNBA." In his Substack, he laid out his thoughts and why he found such an assertion offensive.

"My first reaction to this letter was to check the calendar and make sure it wasn’t April Fools’ Day. 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," Abdul-Jabbar said.

"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."

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar pans GOP lawmakers' letter about Caitlin Clark

Abdul-Jabbar ripped the letter from GOP lawmakers for fanning the flames and making the incident with Clark and Thomas about race.

"The letter was inspired by a recent incident in which Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas hit Clark in the throat when both players went to the floor after a loose ball. Thomas was not called for a foul at the time but was later suspended for one game by the WNBA. Clark is white and Thomas is Black, and I guess that was enough for these intrepid lawmakers to decide the play might have been racially motivated," he said.

"You don’t have to ask what race these eleven GOP congresspeople are, as there are only two Black Republicans currently in the House of Representatives. So, forgive me if it strikes me as much more likely that the letter was racially motivated, rather than the play. Not surprisingly, Thomas and her family subsequently received racist abuse and death threats on the internet."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What did Kareem Abdul-Jabbar say about Caitlin Clark? Debate explained