Since the WNBA returned from its Olympic break, Caitlin Clark is averaging 24.6 points, 9.0 assists, 5.0 rebounds and 1.0 steals per game. She is shooting 50 percent from the floor and 38.6 from behind the arc.
Her Indiana Fever are 6-1, giving them a 17-16 overall record. A team that finished dead last in the league a year ago has already clinched a spot in the playoffs and is trying to chase down a 5 seed.
Clark is playing like at top-10 player in the league, perhaps top five.
No, she isn’t A’ja Wilson of Las Vegas, who should be the undeniable, unanimous choice as league MVP, but it’s a lot closer than anyone could have imagined back in May. That’s when Clark began to adjust to the pro game.
You’d think by now, as Clark has elevated her already excellent game with brilliant performance after brilliant performance, that the debate over who should be the WNBA’s Rookie of the Year would have ended.
If there was a reasonable discourse early in the season between Clark and Chicago’s Angel Reese, there isn’t now. Clark, especially after a month of rest, is a totally different player.
And yet, from former players to media commentators to a swath of fans, there remain holdouts. The only movement seems to be where once it was Reese who deserved to be Rookie of the Year all by herself, there is at least now a nod to make her and Clark co-Rookie of the Years.
Everyone’s motivation is different and trying to figure out that motivation on all sides of the WNBA season this year has been a fascinating cultural subplot. It’s made the league very interesting. Whatever someone’s reason, it is their reason. They can be varied.
Yet in terms of basketball, this is not a real argument and the person who is probably most adversely impacted by the continued debate isn’t Clark, but Angel Reese.
Reese, the LSU product, is having an incredible, historic first season and is poised for a monster career. She is averaging 13.3 points and a league-best 13.2 rebounds a season. Yes, there has been some late-game stat hunting, especially to keep a streak of double-doubles going, but so what?
Anyone who doesn’t recognize Reese’s rebounding prowess, defensive intensity and the fact that Chicago is better when she is on the floor is being disingenuous. Every team in the league would love to have her.
Reese’s 434 rebounds are the most in WNBA history by any player — rookie or veteran — in a single season, and Chicago still has seven games to play.
In virtually any other year, she would be a worthy Rookie of the Year. She should be celebrated.
Instead, she is being dragged into a comparative situation she can’t win, because as great as Reese has been rebounding and defending, Clark has been even greater as an all-around player. Rather than being touted for what she has done and what she is doing, Reese is being criticized for what she can’t do in relation to what Clark does.
Yet there just aren’t many who can do what Clark does.
Basketball is basketball and while defense and rebounding are big parts of the game, everything runs through Caitlin Clark. The passing. The aggressiveness. The double teams. The creativity. The extension of defenses due to deep 3s. And she plays defense and rebounds well, too, especially for a guard.
In the NBA, no matter how great a Ben Wallace or a Dennis Rodman were — and we’re talking Hall of Fame great — no one was picking them over Kobe Bryant or LeBron James or Michael Jordan, who if only by position and responsibility had a greater impact on the game. If Reese can — and we suspect she will — develop a consistent low-post scoring presence, then check back in.
Right now, Clark does it all and she keeps doing it all at a higher and higher level. Her season stats — 18.7 points, 8.4 assists, 5.6 rebounds and 1.4 steals — are on the rise. She is the focus of every defense that faces Indiana, yet she hasn’t been stopped. No one is going to want to play the Fever in the playoffs.
Last to first? Who knows? Indiana started 1-8 and is 16-8 ever since.
Clark is in her own category. It’s plain to see. Not only is it foolish to pretend it isn’t, it leaves Reese, who deserves to be heralded, dealing with being told what she isn’t, rather than getting praise for what she is.
Any honest Rookie of the Year debate is over. The entrenchment isn’t helping anyone.
