Chennedy Carter and WNBA players 'RESENT' Caitlin Clark, claims Stephen A. Smith and says brutal hit shows the 'venom and hostility' facing rookie star

In the aftermath of Chennedy Carter's hard foul on Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark, ESPN's Stephen A. Smith offered his take on the talk of the sports world.

Carter criticized Clark's game in a post to social media, with the drama carrying over to Monday - including the revisiting of some skeletons in Carter's closet.

ESPN waded into the water on First Take with Smith, WNBA expert Monica McNutt, Shannon Sharpe, and even host Molly Qerim speaking their minds on the incident.

Smith is under the belief that there are WNBA players who are jealous of the attention that Clark has been getting - even before she entered the league - with the host saying that race may be a part of it.

"There are girls – young ladies – in the WNBA who are jealous of Caitlin Clark. She is a White girl that has come into the league," Smith said. 

"She has bursted onto the scene. She hasn’t proven herself yet. It’s not even about them thinking they’re better than her because they probably know it at this particular juncture because they’ve been playing on a level she just arrived to.

"Where the resentment comes in is the hard work, the commitment, the dedication, the pounding of the pavement, the being on the grind all of these years trying to uplift this brand that is the WNBA and is women’s professional basketball and all of their efforts were in vain until this girl comes along and takes the league by storm, takes the sport by form in college and has accomplished in a short period of time what they haven’t been able to.

"One would think that folks would be smart enough to recognize and appreciate that about Caitlin Clark – piggyback off of that to their benefit and praise her and support her for it while competing on the court against her."

Smith also contextualized the hip-check that Carter delivered on Clark, saying the Indiana star delivered an elbow that may have caused Carter to retaliate.

"You do that to a person who is now the face of the WNBA, you know that there’s something a little extra to that. 

'Now, in fairness to her, I’ve seen a report where it showed Caitlin Clark elbowing her first and it was retaliatory – I get that part. 

'Let’s also remember that before she shoved, she hip-checked her from the back, from behind, she called her the B-word.… We get all of that. That’s in the heat of competition. We’re not going to overblow that.

"What we’re going to do is give the level of appreciation that it deserves in terms of the venom and potential hostility that exists toward this ‘golden girl’ who happens to be White and how the WNBA is promoting her."

Carter's foul has since been upgraded by the league from a common foul to a flagrant-1 foul. She hasn't been disciplined any further than that.