After The Athletic dripped what is thought to be USA Wprophecy’s basketball lineup for the Olympics in Paris, numerous fans of Indiana Fever shooting guard Caitlin Clark were fast to call her exemption a “snub.” Christine Brennan, a sports writer for USA Today, composed on X, “Having covered the Olympics for 40 years (gulp), I’ve seen some bad group and professionalathlete choice choices. This is the worst. Makes definitely no sense for a ladies’s sport that would haveactually been catapulted onto the world phase in the biggest method possible with Clark.”
But Clark wasn’t snubbed. She simply didn’t make it onto a lineup put together by existing ladies’s basketball executives, retired WNBA champs and previous Olympians who, in attempting to safe Team USA’s 8th successive gold medal, focusedon experience on the expert global phase over prestige and cultural influence.
Clark wasn’t snubbed. She simply didn’t make it onto a lineup put together by present females’s basketball executives, retired WNBA champs, and previous Olympians who focusedon experience on the expert global phase over prestige and cultural influence.
Referring to February’s Olympic Qualifying competition, on Saturday ESPN basketball expert Andraya Carter stated, “Most of the ladies who made this group contended in Belgium, they’re familiar with each other, played in camp together.” She continued, “And that familiarity, specifically because the competitors globally hasactually gone up, has escalated. The familiarity with the group has to be something that the committee took into factortoconsider when they put this group together.”
The last USA Basketball camp, to which Clark was welcomed, took location as she and her Iowa Hawkeyes were contending in NCAA’s Final Four. In April, before this year’s WNBA season tipped off, The Associated Press reported that her early play as a expert would “serve as her tryout” for a area on the last Olympic lineup.
Again, she didn’t make the team — neither did other WNBA gamers who are putting up All-Star-caliber numbers this season — but it’s not because she wasn’t provided heavy factortoconsider. She informed pressreporters on Sunday that she got the news personally from USA Basketball.
The Athletic keptinmind in its report that Clark is one of 3 mostlikely rotates if any of the presumed 12 gamers isn’t healthy adequate to complete. The other 2 are Aliyah Boston, her Fever colleague, and Connecticut Sun center Brionna Jones.
Breanna Stewart, the WNBA’s ruling MVP, made the Olympic lineup that won gold in Rio de Janeiro 8 years ago when she was a novice. However, her choice had a lot to do with how familiar she was with that year’s coach. That year’s USA Wprophecy’s National Team was led by UConn females’s basketball coach Geno Aurriemma. Stewart had played for Auriemma for 4 seasons, and she had won the nationwide champion in every one of them. And, even then, Stewart was not a starter or an effect gamer on 2016’s Olympics team. In the semi-finals videogame versus France, she played less than 3 minutes.
Given the analysis the WNBA hasactually been subjected to giventhat Clark signedupwith the finest ladies’s expert basketball league in the world, and offered the tired narrative that WNBA gamers oughtto be thanking her rather than contending versus her, how would media business respond to Clark being picked for the Olympic group and then riding the bench throughout? My forecast, which has a lot of proof to back it up, is not well.
Reeve would continuously be fielding questions about why Clark’s minutes are low and what she might do to make more. That’s what tookplace when New York Liberty star guard Sabrina Ionescu made it onto USA Basketball’s World Cup Team in2022 During the World Cup Final in Sydney, Ionescu played a hair over 5 minutes and scored no points.
Ionescu hasactually taken part in all the USA Basketball mini camps that she might throughout this choice cycle. She remained client, put the work in and foundout what Reeve’s system required as she established chemistry with a lot of the other gamers in the swimmingpool. Ionescu made this year’s 12-player lineup.
Also, puton’t forget when Rebecca Lobo was a extremely promoted novice who was tossed onto then-coach Tara VanDerVeer’