Tyrone Johnson says Caitlin Clark’s time is over: ‘She’s Jeremy Lin. This is just Linsanity’

In a way, the ethos behind Awful Announcing is an ever-evolving, living organism.

What was acceptable for us to write about five years ago might not meet our standards today.

And we’re always evaluating which content is worth publishing and what doesn’t need oxygen.

Hot takes for the sake of hot takery are the kind of things we tend to skip these days, with some exceptions. If a hot-take artist like Skip Bayless or Craig Carton is going to say something provocative, we mostly err on the side of making sure there’s a sports media angle to it.

But we are not immune to the clarion call of an absolutely batsh*t hot take. Like moths to a flame, sometimes you simply have to fly directly into the light in order to marvel in its insanity.

Or in this case, Linsanity.

Here’s former Philly radio host and current co-host of The Craig Carton Show, Tyrone Johnson, with the eye-wateringly exquisite take that WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark is already becoming a flash in the pan, akin to former NBA player Jeremy Lin.

“The Caitlin Clark thing is over because she’s not the best player in the WNBA,” begins Johnson. “She’s not the best guard in the WNBA. She’s not even the best guard from her college class because that’s Paige Bueckers, who plays for Dallas, who beat them in the season opener. This could be a situation where… we look back on Caitlin Clark, and we’re not gonna look back on her like she’s Michael Jordan. She’s Jeremy Lin. This is just Linsanity.”

Johnson is referring to the brief period in 2011 and 2012 when Lin was one of the most exciting players in the NBA, before injuries and age caught up with him, and he finished his career as a productive but inconsistent journeyman.

“She’s gonna fumble this, and it’s because of two things,” continued Johnson. She decided to roll up with Morgan Wallen. Morgan Wallen says the N-word liberally. Says it more than I do, and I’m Black. And her bitching and moaning to the refs nonstop.

“But when we look back on this, we’ll go, this girl had the world by the balls. She had everybody loving her. People who hate women’s sports were tuning in just for her. And we look at Jeremy Lin and look at her, we’re going to find out that at the end of the day, it was the exact same thing.”

From start to finish, truly a chef’s kiss of a nuclear take. And we have no doubt that the rational, narrative-free conversations around Clark and the WNBA will handle the response with grace and aplomb.