Caitlin Clark’s perspective on Olympic snub makes all the sense in the world

One of many greatest tales in ladies’s basketball this previous 12 months 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 grew to become a nationwide controversy.

Critics railed USA Basketball for conserving her off the group, citing her rising reputation 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 had been multiple-time All-Stars — some even multiple-time Olympians. At 26 years previous, Ionescu marked the youngest participant on the roster.

Photograph by Tim Clayton/Corbis by way of 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 reputation.

When the rosters had been finalized, the Fever boasted a 3-9 report, 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 lots 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 everyone 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 convey together with her to Paris.

ESPN’s Stephen A Smith and USA At the moment’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.

“Now, you got here house with the gold. You dealt with your enterprise,” mentioned Stephen A Smith of the USA Basketball ladies’s group. “However while you discuss advertising the game, I feel Crew USA missed a chance to raise the profile of ladies’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 reputation.

“I don’t wish to be there as a result of I’m any individual that may convey consideration,” Clark mentioned. “I really like that for the sport of ladies’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 in the end 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, in the end establishing herself as top-of-the-line guards within the league, if not the greatest — and ultimately being named to the All-WNBA First Crew.

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’ reputation ought to have been a consideration.

”It will be irresponsible for us to speak about her in a method aside from how she would affect the play of the group,” Rizzotti mentioned. “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 perfect group we might for Cheryl.”

Clark’s improved post-Olympic play demonstrated she nearly actually would have been a very good match on the roster, particularly contemplating the struggles of a number of the USA group’s older gamers all through the event.

Clark famous that being left off the roster “will certainly inspire me my whole profession.”

Barring an damage, 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 reputation — or the possible viewership increase that might have come together with her inclusion.

“That entire narrative sort of upset me,” Clark mentioned. “As a result of that’s not honest. It’s disrespectful to the those that had been on the group, that had earned it and had been actually good. And it’s additionally disrespectful to myself.”