Cooper DeJean said he can beat Caitlin Clark 1 on 1

He's a NFL prospect, projected to go in the 1st round. Plays CB I believe.

If you read...er, waste any time on Twitter, you'll see this is starting to gain some traction. There's people who are convinced he wouldn't stand a chance against her, and there are those who think he'd mop the floor with her. It just turns into tribalism.

Most of the people, IMHO, who think she'd win (easily or at all) are only saying it because we're in a movement to praise women sports. I'd be willing to bet that most of those people, who think that she'd win or that it wouldn't be competitive in her favor, have no idea who the guy is. Just like those who think the WNBA players should be getting paid more and use the NBA salaries as the reason have no idea that the NBA makes billions a year and the WNBA is subsidized by the NBA and the women actually get paid at a higher % of the TV deal than the men do.

Anyway, back to the story. Here are his vitals.

He's 6'1", 207 lbs, has a 4.43 40 yard dash time and a vertical leap of 38 inches.

That's not to say just because he's athletic, stronger and faster, that he's a better basketball player.

He was an All Iowa selection in football, track and field, and basketball. He was the 2021 Iowa male athlete of the year.

He averaged 26-8-7 his senior year, shot 57% from the floor and averaged 3 steals a game.




The point of this post? I don't get why we need to be comparing mens and women's athletes as a way to justify or validate female athletes. Yeah, he could probably beat her at hoops, so what? She's still a great representative for women's sports. A woman's ability vs a men should have no bearing on their credibility.

I'm sure there are men that she could beat one on one (she could spot me 50 points in a game of 51, and still win)...but they don't compete against men.

 

Agreed. She doesn't need to prove herself against him, just as he doesn't need to prove she's not as good as men are (or he is, in this case) either.

Like I said (I think I did?), her performance against a man doesn't change her performance against women. Women shouldn't need to prove themselves, or compare themselves, against men.

 

I have no idea whether he would beat her or not in 1:1... I presume he would, because in competitive 1:1 games, the bigger player can just back the other one down and get easy shots (see: ). I also suspect that in real, 5:5 games, that he would be a lot more disruptive defensively, on the boards, and in getting to the hoop.

It doesn't matter, of course, except to those who take positions like, "Caitlyn Clark could play in the NBA"... which I find utterly ridiculous.

My thoughts on women's basketball are that it's boring because the women just aren't that good at it. Players in the NBA or men's college basketball and even high-level prep teams are superior players and they do things that I could never imagine myself doing on the court, whereas when I was in high school or college I feel I would have been able to compete--certainly at the women's college level and probably even as a "worst player on the court"-level guy in the WNBA.

For tennis and golf and volleyball and soccer and gynmastics and ice skating and whatever? There's no way. Me at my best at any of those sports was nowhere near approaching pro (or high level amateurs) and even though the men are still way better, I remain in awe at how good they are. I feel no such awe for women basketball players even as I acknowledge that (a) they are better than I am at the sport, and (b) some of them, like Clark, are way way better than other women basketball players.

Of course, if the WNBA were to prove that they were as good on the court as men's teams, my opinion might change and I'd find their below-the-rim style of basketball more interesting, but I don't see that happening.

 

I'm confused as to what argument you're making here. Is anyone suggesting that people should not watch Caitlyn Clark because she might not be able to beat a football player in a one-on-one basketball game? Or that she should somehow be paid less?

 

I could beat Air Bud in a game of 1 on 1.

 

I don't watch high school basketball and rarely watch college basketball, but they are "good" at basketball in a way that I don't consider the WNBA and definitely not college women.

I watch the Blazers (sometimes) because they are playing at the highest level of competition in the world and I have ongoing emotional investment in them.

I watch the Ducks football team in spite of it not being the highest level of competition because I have emotional investment in them and I am impressed by what they do. I could never, ever have run a 4.6 40, that's commonplace in college football and it's impressive to me.

Compare this to women's basketball: I could dunk a basketball back in the day, and that's almost unheard of in the women's game. I am 6'1", which is apparently right about the average height for WNBA players. Their play style is not impressive, their physicality is not impressive, nothing is impressive to me other than their achievements relative to one another... which is not enough to get me interested.

In any case, you can tell my why I should not watch other things (which I don't really even watch some of) but not why I should watch women's basketball. Other than getting caught up in a movement, or political reasons, or having a daughter... I don't see any good reasons and none of those reasons are relevant to me.

 

This feels like you just had to jam in a talking point here independent of what anyone else was posting in the thread.