One of many greatest tales in girls’s basketball this previous yr was Caitlin Clark’s omission from the U.S. Olympic basketball group. Clark — amid an up-and-down starting to her rookie season on the Indiana Fever — was left off the 12-woman roster, a call that immediately turned a nationwide controversy.
Critics railed USA Basketball for conserving her off the group, citing her rising recognition as cause why she ought to have been on the Paris Olympics roster.
Somewhat 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 had been multiple-time All-Stars — some even multiple-time Olympians. At 26 years outdated, Ionescu marked the youngest participant on the roster.
Photograph by Tim Clayton/Corbis through Getty Pictures
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 group as a result of her recognition.
When the rosters had been finalized, the Fever boasted a 3-9 file, 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 a variety of causes to maintain me off the group with my play,” she mentioned.
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 group?’” Clark mentioned. “And that was an amazing level.”
Many media personalities insisted that leaving Clark off the roster was a mistake as a result of advertising cause — pointing to the visibility and a focus she would inveitably carry together with her to Paris.
ESPN’s Stephen A Smith and USA Immediately’s Christine Brennan had 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 group was lacking her skillset.
Why leaving Caitlin Clark off the 2024 US Olympic girls’s basketball group issues, quite a bit. I’ve reported on the group at each Olympics since 1984. I’ve watched the beautiful lack of protection & lack of curiosity each time. Listed here are 4 sections of my Feb column on this actual subject: pic.twitter.com/MjwqeVQdR8
— Christine Brennan (@cbrennansports) June 8, 2024
“Now, you got here house with the gold. You dealt with your corporation,” mentioned Stephen A Smith of the USA Basketball girls’s group. “However whenever you discuss advertising the game, I feel Staff 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 as a result of her particular person recognition.
“I don’t wish to be there as a result of I’m anyone that may carry consideration,” Clark mentioned. “I really like that for the sport of girls’s basketball. However on the identical time, I wish to be there as a result of they assume I’m adequate. I don’t wish to be some little individual that’s sort 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 group as a result of her basketball prowess. After the Olympic break, she tremendously improved her play, finally establishing herself as probably the greatest guards within the league, if not the greatest — and finally being named to the All-WNBA First Staff.
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 might be irresponsible for us to speak about her in a approach apart from how she would influence the play of the group,” Rizzotti mentioned. “As a result of it wasn’t the purview of our committee to determine how many individuals would watch or how many individuals would root for the U.S. It was our purview to create the very best group we might for Cheryl.”
Clark’s improved post-Olympic play demonstrated she virtually actually would have been a superb match on the roster, particularly contemplating the struggles of among the USA group’s older gamers all through the event.
Clark famous that being left off the roster “will certainly inspire me my complete profession.”
Barring an harm, the WNBA sensation is practicaly a shoe-in for the 2028 roster, one thing she informed Gregory was a “an enormous, big purpose.”
However, the discourse round her exclusion by no means ought to have been centered round her recognition — or the possible viewership increase that will have come together with her inclusion.
“That entire narrative sort of upset me,” Clark mentioned. “As a result of that’s not truthful. It’s disrespectful to the those who had been on the group, that had earned it and had been actually good. And it’s additionally disrespectful to myself.”
