One of many greatest tales in ladies’s basketball this previous yr was Caitlin Clark’s omission from the U.S. Olympic basketball crew. Clark — amid an up-and-down starting to her rookie season on the Indiana Fever — was left off the 12-woman roster, a choice that immediately turned a nationwide controversy.
Critics railed USA Basketball for preserving her off the crew, citing her rising recognition as cause why she ought to have been on the Paris Olympics roster.
Slightly than Clark, the roster included guards with extra veteran guards like Jewell Loyd, Kelsey Plum, Jackie Younger, Chelsea Grey, Diana Taurasi, Sabrina Ionescu, and Kahleah Copper. Every of these guys have been multiple-time All-Stars — some even multiple-time Olympians. At 26 years previous, Ionescu marked the youngest participant on the roster.
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Photograph by Tim Clayton/Corbis by way of Getty Photos
In a Time interview with Sean Gregory, Clark admitted her preliminary disappointment from being left off the USA basketball roster — however made clear she rejected the notion she ought to have been named to the crew resulting from her recognition.
When the rosters have been finalized, the Fever boasted a 3-9 document, and Clark was within the midst of an inconsistent begin to the season, a stretch that was marred by a number of high-turnover video games and spotty capturing performances.
“I gave them loads of causes to maintain me off the crew with my play,” she stated.
She additionally acknowledged the depth of expertise on the USA Basketball roster.
“A degree all people was making was like, ‘Who’re you taking off the crew?’” Clark stated. “And that was an incredible level.”
Many media personalities insisted that leaving Clark off the roster was a mistake resulting from advertising cause — pointing to the visibility and a spotlight she would inveitably carry along with her to Paris.
ESPN’s Stephen A Smith and USA Right now’s Christine Brennan have been two of the loudest voices that admonished USA Basketball for not placing Clark on the roster from a visibility standpoint — not as a result of the crew was lacking her skillset.
Why leaving Caitlin Clark off the 2024 US Olympic ladies’s basketball crew issues, quite a bit. I’ve reported on the crew at each Olympics since 1984. I’ve watched the gorgeous lack of protection & lack of curiosity each time. Listed here are 4 sections of my Feb column on this precise subject: pic.twitter.com/MjwqeVQdR8
— Christine Brennan (@cbrennansports) June 8, 2024
“Now, you got here dwelling with the gold. You dealt with your small business,” stated Stephen A Smith of the USA Basketball ladies’s crew. “However if you discuss advertising the game, I believe Workforce USA missed a possibility to raise the profile of girls’s excellence within the sport of basketball.”
Clark rejected the notion that she ought to have been on the roster resulting from her particular person recognition.
“I don’t wish to be there as a result of I’m any individual that may carry consideration,” Clark stated. “I really like that for the sport of girls’s basketball. However on the similar time, I wish to be there as a result of they assume I’m ok. I don’t wish to be some little individual that’s form of dragged round for individuals to cheer about and solely watch as a result of I’m sitting on the bench.”
In actuality, Clark’s play in her rookie season finally demonstrated that she ought to have been on the crew resulting from her basketball prowess. After the Olympic break, she tremendously improved her play, finally establishing herself as top-of-the-line guards within the league, if not the finest — and ultimately being named to the All-WNBA First Workforce.
Clark averaged 23.4 factors and eight.9 assists after the break, and the Fever punched their ticket to the WNBA playoffs for the primary time since 2017. She recorded extra assists in a single WNBA season than any participant in WNBA historical past.
Jen Rizzotti, USA Basketball’s choice committee chair, vehemently disagreed that gamers’ recognition ought to have been a consideration.
”It could be irresponsible for us to speak about her in a approach apart from how she would impression the play of the crew,” Rizzotti stated. “As a result of it wasn’t the purview of our committee to resolve how many individuals would watch or how many individuals would root for the U.S. It was our purview to create the most effective crew we might for Cheryl.”
Clark’s improved post-Olympic play demonstrated she virtually actually would have been a great match on the roster, particularly contemplating the struggles of among the USA crew’s older gamers all through the event.
Clark famous that being left off the roster “will certainly inspire me my total profession.”
Barring an harm, the WNBA sensation is practicaly a shoe-in for the 2028 roster, one thing she instructed Gregory was a “an enormous, big aim.”
However, the discourse round her exclusion by no means ought to have been centered round her recognition — or the potential viewership increase that may have come along with her inclusion.
“That complete narrative form of upset me,” Clark stated. “As a result of that’s not honest. It’s disrespectful to the those that have been on the crew, that had earned it and have been actually good. And it’s additionally disrespectful to myself.”