Picture Angel Reese grabbing a rebound and passing to Caitlin Clark, who then fires down the floor to Paige Bueckers, who drives to the goal and fools the help defender with a dish to the best player on the planet.Picture A’ja Wilson making the layup that clinches the gold medal for the United States at next month’s FIBA World Cup.For the WNBA, this best-case scenario in Berlin would represent a welcome getaway from the noise and an extended unity break at a time of great strife. The Summer of Sophie (Cunningham) has added to already existing — and seemingly never-ending — tensions. We have the Caitlin Clark Experience, a majority-Black league with a significant queer presence, and questions about transgender eligibility that inspire demonstrations outside arenas … and disruptions inside arenas.House Republicans writing to WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert about concerns that on-court “attacks” on Clark might be “racially motivated.” Sex toys being hurled onto the court by Loserville spectators. Juggling circus clowns the likes of Enes Kanter Freedom making a scene during a nationally televised game involving the league’s biggest star.In such a volatile political climate, the WNBA has been weaponized by bad-faith actors who, Engelbert said, use the league “to sow divisiveness” on race, gender and sexuality fronts.Online threats and hate aimed at players are unforgivable, and no upside can make up for that. And yet these fault lines cut through the foundation of the WNBA at a time when all general interest metrics are up, up, up, and when one of the league’s newest franchises, the Golden State Valkyries, has hit the $1 billion valuation mark.The WNBA needs to be smart about how it navigates through and around extremely delicate issues that fuel the culture-war fire, but here’s the good news: To someone who has watched and appreciated the league but has not covered it, it sure seems that more male and female fans were focused on the WNBA this summer than ever before.Meaning more people tuning in to Indiana Fever games to watch Caitlin be Caitlin or to see Cunningham play the villainous WWE heel, only to then come away saying, “Hey, I didn’t know Kelsey Mitchell was that good.”Watch This: Mitchell, Clark combine for 67 as Fever roll over SkyMeaning the league’s array of exciting young talents, Clark’s mass appeal, and the history of major sports leagues surviving existential crises suggest it will figure it out and find even greater prosperity on the other side.Every successful league has endured its share of controversy and adversity, perhaps none more than the league that launched the WNBA. In 1998, after Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird had turned the NBA into a global juggernaut, I was sitting in David Stern’s office high above Fifth Avenue, remembering what his league used to be in the 1970s.“We were written off as too Black, too drug-infested,” the commissioner said that day. We recalled half-empty arenas and conference finals games shown on tape delay at 11:30 p.m. ET. Near the end of the NBA’s 30th season, Game 3 of the 1976 finals in Phoenix started at 10:30 a.m. — yes, in the middle of the morning — so CBS could show golf in the afternoon.In the WNBA’s 30th season, nobody is rolling out of bed to play a championship-round game for a barely interested network. You can’t turn around without finding a WNBA game on a TV somewhere in the most desired broadcasting slots.Stern had a ton on his plate back in the day, including Johnson’s HIV disclosure, Latrell Sprewell’s attack on his coach, the Tim Donaghy gambling scandal, and in 2004, the “Malice at the Palace.” That brawl between Indiana Pacers players and Detroit Pistons fans compelled the commissioner to initiate a player-community outreach program, NBA Cares, and to install a dress code condemned in some corners as a racist counter to Allen Iverson and hip-hop.