The Olympic team doesn't need Clark, and vice versa

She needs a break, and the U.S. needs to showcase its more deserving players.

A’ja Wlson

Some people seem to think the women’s basketball gold medal at the Olympics should be decided by clicks, not points.

On Saturday, word got out that USA Basketball had chosen its 12 Olympic team members. Caitlin Clark was not among them. Thunder erupted from angry keyboards, some of which were operated by folks who wouldn’t know Rebecca Lobo from Sheriff Lobo. Don’t these Olympic people know anything about trending, marketing, integrated social media platforms? Don’t they realize what they’re doing to the movie?

Such talk is a many-splendored insult. Team USA has lost one Olympic game since 1976. It has won 72 of 75 games overall and seven golds, with a point differential of plus-1,991. It doesn’t need a Big 10 record-setter to legitimize it.

There were no TikTok influencers on the selection committee, no sitcom showrunners. Jen Rizzoti, the former UConn point guard, chaired it. She is the president of the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun and was an assistant coach in Tokyo three years ago. She had input from Dawn Staley, who coached one Olympic champion and played for three others. Semoine Augustus owns three gold medals and four WNBA titles. Delisha Milton-Jones won two Olympic golds and played 17 years in the WNBA.

Aw, what do they know?

Well, they know their selections won’t be unanimously rubber-stamped in the public square. They know that American women’s basketball did not spring from a manger in West Des Moines, Iowa, and it’s about time everyone else realized it.

They know that everyone on this team is familiar with Olympic pressure, bumps and bruises. They also know that Clark has been extraordinarily stressed in her rock star role, basically going straight from the Final Four to Fever training camp, being asked to play 11 games in 20 days against grown-woman competition, being body-checked by Chicago’s Chennedy Clark and having that ugly footage knock Gaza off the evening news, and being prevented from just being.

Clark is averaging 16.8 points and shooting 32.7 percent from deep, and she is also giving up 5.6 turnovers per game. She does not belong on this team, partly because of performance, partly because there are at least 12 and probably 24 better players, at least for the moment.

That shouldn’t be controversial. But it’s increasingly hard to remember the days when Clark’s glorious quest made people happy.

The other day she said her focus was basketball, and that “sometimes it stinks how much the conversation is outside of basketball and not the product on the floor, and the amazing players….and how great this season has been for women’s basketball.”

That was Clark’s world, and ours, a mere two months ago, when Iowa was playing for a national championship, and more people were watching Clark shoot 3s than were watching Dan Hurley upbraid referees or Nikola Jokic rewrite hoop geometry.

Clark’s fans have followed her like 60s teeny-boppers pursued the Beatles, to the point that a game between her 3-8 Fever and the 0-10 Washington Mystics drew over 20,000 in D.C. Significantly, it was the Fever’s first game in five days, and Clark responded with 30 points.

But those who say Clark’s mass appeal automatically qualified her for the Olympic team are either ignorant or negligent. It’s like saying Tiger Woods should automatically qualify for the U.S. Olympic golf team.

American women’s basketball is a mighty fortress. This projected team has combined for 18 WNBA titles, four league MVPs and 55 All-Star selections. Who would you delete from the manifest, to make room for the people’s choice?

A’ja Wilson is on track to become the most decorated woman in American basketball history. She was the best player in high school and in college (South Carolina) and has won two WNBA titles in Vegas, an Olympic gold medal and two Most Valuable Player awards.

Diana Taurasi, at 42, is going for her sixth gold medal, with a resume that would stretch 94 feet, single-spaced.

Breanna Stewart is a 2-time WNBA Most Valuable Player and won four NCAA titles at UConn.

Brittney Griner has two Olympic golds and two World Cup golds, for those who question her patriotism, and of course is coming back from a nine-and-a-half month term in a Russian jail. She is a 9-time WNBA All-Star and was named to the league’s 25th anniversary team.

Sabrina Ionescu, at Oregon, was the first college player to reach 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds and 1,000 assists. Yes, she was a better player than Clark. She’s now an All-Star with the New York Liberty.

Jewell Loyd was the college player of the year at Notre Dame and was a WNBA rookie of the year.

Kelsey Plum, like Wilson, won two championships for Las Vegas, was a college player of the year at Washington, and is first-team All-WNBA.

Chelsea Gray is a 3-time champ and a Finals MVP.

Jackie Young is a 2-time champ with Las Vegas, a 2-time All-Star and was on an NCAA title team at Notre Dame.

Napheesa Collier is a 3-time All-Star, an NCAA titleist at UConn, and a Olympic gold medalist.

Kahleah Copper is a WNBA Finals MVP and a 3-time All-Star.

Alyssa Thomas is a 4-time All-Star who has led the league in rebounds and steals.

The fans are ahead of the media in most things, particularly women’s basketball. Wilson is far from obscure. She has a best-selling book called “Dear Black Girls” and she and Ionescu are on a State Farm commercial, as are Loyd and Arike Ogunbowale. NBC was already using Wilson as the promotional hook for its women’s broadcasts. The network seemed to know that Clark, having missed the team’s training camp, was a long shot.

Clark is 22, which means she will be 26 when the Olympics come to Los Angeles in 2028. She might have three Olympics in her future, provided she develops her game. But she also needs to improve dramatically to hold off the players that are coming, some of whom she inspired.

As usual, UConn coach Geno Auriemma is the unfiltered voice of reason.

“I think she’s handling it great,” Auriemma said of Clark. “I think she talks a lot of shit. She gets a lot of shit back. So she deserves everything she gets because she gives as good as she gets. She’s just not built for the physicality of this league and she’s not quick enough to get away from the physicality. So there’s a lot of learning curve. When she gets it, she has elite skills, but she needs to be on a better team and to be more experienced. That will come.

“The delusional fan base that follows her disrespected the WNBA players by saying, ‘She’s gonna go in that league and tear it apart.’ Like, she was third or fourth in betting odds in being the MVP of the WNBA. These people are so disrespectful and so stupid that it gives women’s basketball a bad name. The kid was set up for failure right from the beginning.

“So if you’re an WNBA player, and believe me, I’ve coached the best and I’ve pissed them off a lot and they let me know about it… But they were tremendously disrespected.”

On Saturday, they still were, by some people who should have known better, by others who had discovered a whole new world by following Clark. By staying tuned, they’ll learn the magnitude of the game she is saddled with changing.