Mac Engel: Fever's Caitlin Clark is special -- so special she merits 'The Jordan Rules'

Mac Engel, Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Jun 26, 2025

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FORT WORTH, Texas — According to the internet, all opponents of Caitlin Clark should create an HOV lane for her to the basket, give her at least 5-feet on 3-point shots, and after each game provide a tithe to her account.

The WNBA should stitch a “HANDLE WITH CARE” logo on the front and back of her Indiana Fever jersey.

Clark is in her second WNBA season, and the rhetoric behind the most popular player in the league has crossed into the criminally stupid. There is this notion that her opponents need to recognize that she’s their meal ticket, and act not just accordingly but subserviently.

You want equality, do you? Then how Clark’s opponents treat her on the floor is not only fine but consistent with pro sports. Deal with it.

If it was OK for Michael Jordan, it has to be for Caitlin Clark.

Caitlin comes to play the Wings ... maybe

The Caitlin Clark “Eras Tour” is scheduled for a stop in Texas on Friday night for the Fever’s game against the Dallas Wings. Because it’s Caitlin, the game has been moved from Arlington’s College Park Center, which has a seating capacity of 7,000, to the American Airlines Center in Dallas. The AAC has a seating capacity of 20,000.

Only Caitlin can do this.

The Wings are 4-12, and the Fever 7-7 heading into play Thursday. The Wings announced on Thursday that the game is a sellout.

The much anticipated Paige Bueckers versus Caitlin Clark Game has been a priority since the Wings selected Bueckers with the top pick in the WNBA draft earlier this spring.

The Wings have planned an entire party around this game; tickets on the secondary market are going for Brain Dead prices. On the secondary market, the “cheap” tickets in the rafters are going for $120-ish.

Now, for the really good news; Clark may not play. She was ruled “out” for the Fever’s game on Thursday night against the L.A. Sparks. She had an MRI on Wednesday evening, and is currently listed as day-to-day with a groin injury.

She has already missed five games because of a quad injury; in those games, the Fever are 2-3.

With a packed house of Caitlin Heads expected at the AAC, her absence against the Sparks may be a case of the league/team cooperating to give Clark the first night off of a back-to-back so she can play on Friday against the Wings.

It’s also the cruel part of the “buyer beware” for the ticket-buying fan. Your favorite player may be hurt, and can’t play.

If she plays, whatever the Wings do to stop her, provided it doesn’t include a bazooka or T-34, is fair game.

The Cailtin Rules

Every time Caitlin takes a hard foul these days, the immediate reaction among people who love basketball but barely watch the WNBA is that the referees are horrible, and both the league and its players are idiots for failing to see what we all know.

Cailtin puts money in their pockets, so all parties need to heed the timeless adage, “Keep your hands to yourself.”

There is truth to this. She’s Taylor Swift, and if you’re on stage with her, be grateful.

(Since you brought it up, if you know the tendencies of WNBA officials, or any official, ask yourself, ‘What am I doing with my life?’)

The Fever and Clark against the Wings, or any WNBA team, is not an Olivia Rodrigo show. Competition is the point of sale here.

Caitlin has rock star qualities, but she’s also the fastest gun in the West, and her league’s Michael Jordan.

Not long after Jordan entered the NBA in 1984, he became the primary focus of every opponent. Like Magic with the Lakers. Bird with the Celtics. Wayne Gretzky with the Edmonton Oilers. Shaq with the Magic.

The opponent’s goal is to get the ball/puck away from them. By any means necessary. Famously, the Detroit Pistons devised “The Jordan Rules” and used them when they played.

Pistons guard, Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas, told the “All the Smoke” podcast that the rules were the following: “Our job was to limit the (Jordan) possessions.”

That means send the player into double teams. A triple team. Make them feel it. Tire them out. Wear them down. Exhaust them. Break them. In the process, sometimes things “happen.”

If it does, a teammate should be there “to help.” Jordan had Charles Oakley. Gretzky had Marty McSorley. Reggie Miller had Dale and Antonio Davis. There are players whose unwritten job description is to let people know, “Keep your hands to yourself.”

Clark has Sophie Cunningham, who in her brief time with the Fever has become internet famous for a hard foul in retaliation of the WNBA meal ticket.

Because this is not The Eras Tour. This is sports.

Caitlin Clark is special. She deserves special treatment.

She deserves “The Jordan Rules.”