What Chennedy Carter's hard foul on Caitlin Clark says about the WNBA

WNBA rookie Caitlin Clark was again in the news over the weekend.

Her Indiana Fever recorded their first home win of the season, beating the Chicago Sky and Clark's former college rival Angel Reese. But the main story coming out of the game was not Indiana's victory, but rather the hard foul that Sky guard Chennedy Carter committed against Clark before a late-game inbounds play.

The foul, in which Carter body-slammed Clark to the ground to the seeming delight of Reese on the bench, was retroactively ruled a Flagrant 1 by the WNBA. Additionally, the league fined both the Sky and Reese for breaking the league's media availability policy after the game. Sky head coach Teresa Weatherspoon later said Carter's foul was "not appropriate."

Carter's foul against Clark was the latest and most striking in what appears to be a trend of physical play against Clark. Meanwhile, the Fever have gotten off to a bumpy start in her much-anticipated rookie season. That topic was the talk of the sports world Monday, and several prominent FS1 personalities weighed in.

Here's what they had to say.

On Tuesday's edition of "The Herd," Cowherd said he did not see much difference between how Clark is being treated in her first WNBA season and how other athletes have been similarly treated in the past.

"Now, everybody's freaking out because she's getting nudged here, hard-fouled there, hitting the floor there," Cowherd said. "'Where is the protection?' Oh, boy. Once again, the media and fans are protecting somebody that doesn't need protecting. When Toni Kukoc came from Europe to play with the Chicago Bulls, this is what [Michael Jordan] and Scottie Pippen did to their own teammate in practice. Sports is tribal. It's intimidating. It's physical, and