In early June, USA Basketball made its selections for the 2024 women’s Olympics roster, with 12 of the biggest stars of the sport earning a spot on the most competitive roster in the world. There were a number of snubs, from Arike Ogunbowale (who apparently removed herself from the pool earlier in the process) to Caitlin Clark, the latter’s omission sparking weeks of debate.
The truth was, at the time, Clark was not playing her best basketball in the first month of her WNBA career, going through the adjustment period most every rookie goes through making the leap from the college level to the pros. Clark brushed aside the snub talk, noting how hard it is to make the roster and took some positives from it, as she gets a month off after a grueling year that saw her go straight from a Final Four run with Iowa into her rookie season.
She also said she’d use it as some additional fuel, making sure that there’s no doubt she belongs in future years. Clark spoke about her exclusion from the roster on June 9, and had a pair of rough outings immediately after, but since that point, she’s seemingly taken a leap. Clark is averaging 18.8 points, 10.8 assists, and 6.9 rebounds per game on 44.5/33.3/88.5 shooting splits in her last 12 games, with the Fever going 7-5 in that stretch to move into seventh place in the WNBA standings. In the first 14 games of her WNBA career, she averaged just 15.6 points, 6.0 assists, and 4.9 rebounds on 36.7/32.2/89.7 splits, with the Fever going 4-10.
On Sunday, Dawn Staley joined Mike Tirico as part of NBC’s studio team for their USA Basketball coverage, discussing the men’s blowout win over Serbia, but they eventually shifted towards a discussion of the USA women, who will begin their quest for a ninth straight gold on Monday. Tirico asked Staley, who is part of USA Basketball’s selection committee, about Clark not making the roster, and the South Carolina coach noted that things might be different if the team was being put together today.
Dawn Staley, a member of the USWNT selection committee, asked about Caitlin Clark.
“If we had to do it all over again, the way that she’s playing, she would be in really high consideration of making the team because she is playing head and shoulders above a lot of people.” pic.twitter.com/hMYqTsPWzc
— Scott Agness (@ScottAgness) July 28, 2024
It’s interesting that Staley would make this statement on air, but it’s a reminder of how thin the margins are at this level with how great the USA pool of talent is. Had Clark come out of the gates firing on all cylinders to start her WNBA career, she probably would’ve made the roster. Instead, she had the kinds of struggles most rookies go through, it just happened to come right when selections were being made. Clark almost assuredly has a future as part of Team USA, and if her recent run is an indicator of what she’ll be doing in the WNBA going forward, there likely won’t be a lot of drama for future selection processes.
