Staggering Caitlin Clark Stats Show Why Team USA Olympics Snub Likely Helped Her
The USA Women's National Basketball team is a few hours away from playing their fourth game of the Paris 2024 Olympics.
It's no secret that they'll be doing so without arguably the world's biggest women's basketball star, Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark.
While one member of the Team USA basketball's Olympics selection committee (South Carolina coach Dawn Staley) has admitted that Clark now deserves inclusion on the team, an August 7 article from The Athletic makes a compelling case about why the 22-year-old receiving rest instead of an Olympic roster spot was a blessing in disguise.
"Being left off Team USA has provided [Clark] with something more than motivation: time," The Athletic's Ben Pickman wrote.
Pickman also notes that Clark has logged more minutes per game than any other WNBA rookie in the past two decades. Her, "914 [WNBA] first-half minutes are the second most in the league this season, and she’s one of only three players to have played more than 850 minutes so far."
This comes after Clark played in all 139 of her Iowa Hawkeyes squad's games across her college career, and tallied more minutes (4.832) throughout those four seasons than any Division I player.
While the Fever rookie sensation's iconic college skillset has mostly translated to the WNBA, her three-point shot — which turned Clark into a global superstar — has not.
Clark shot 37.8% from three-point range during her final season at Iowa; which, mind you, ended only four months ago.
But she's shooting 32.7% from three in the WNBA this season.
Fatigue is presumably the reason for this prolonged shooting drought. And Clark's Fever coach Christie Sides alluded to this when speaking about the rookie with the media on Tuesday.
"I think just the rest," Sides said when asked about what she has seen from Clark since the Fever returned to practice, per the Fever's YouTube account. "I think she was able to get her legs under her.
"She's hitting shots," Sides continued. "She's been going since her college season started last year. So just for her to get that rest."
Sides clearly agrees that Clark spending this Olympics break resting at home instead of playing for Team USA has enabled her record-setting shooting prowess to return.
Which is bad news for the rest of the WNBA.
GRANT YOUNG
Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.