Official WNBA Random Thoughts -

[klientel]

That would never be the case since she'd ride the bench for 98% of the Olympics. Little girls in Poland and Thailand are not going to be inspired by a benchwarmer.

She doesn't need to play 35-40 minutes. Hell nobody on the team is playing those sorts of minutes, they will all mostly be around 20 anyway. And the games will likely all be blowouts so none of that matters in the long run.

She could play 15-20 minutes and viewership, jersey sales, sponsors, etc would sky rocket. Womens basketball at the olympic level is mostly meaningless since there is pretty much no chance they lose. Might as well use this as an opportunity to capitalize on your popular players and increase exposure.

Clark and even Reese should have been on that team.

 

[tremonthustler1]

That would never be the case since she'd ride the bench for 98% of the Olympics. Little girls in Poland and Thailand are not going to be inspired by a benchwarmer.

you see it.

She doesn't need to play 35-40 minutes. Hell nobody on the team is playing those sorts of minutes, they will all mostly be around 20 anyway. And the games will likely all be blowouts so none of that matters in the long run.

She could play 15-20 minutes and viewership, jersey sales, sponsors, etc would sky rocket. Womens basketball at the olympic level is mostly meaningless since there is pretty much no chance they lose. Might as well use this as an opportunity to capitalize on your popular players and increase exposure.

Clark and even Reese should have been on that team.

the US beat Japan by 15 in the title game in 2020. 3 players on the US bench played 11 or more minutes. The rest didn't get more than 4. Clark wasn't gonna be in that primary rotation even if she made the team.


If the lineup is


Wilson
Stewart
Thomas
Ionescu
Young

the next 3 are probably Collier, Copper and Griner more often than not.

 

[EA]

I find it funny that the Olympic team being a meritocracy has gone out of the window now that CC hasn’t been selected. There are players that didn’t make the squad that are better players than her and have more a reason to feel like they’ve been snubbed.

The USA WBB team has won the last 5+ Olympics so having her ride the bench for another gold medal isn’t going to make this matter more.

 

[phillycavsfan]

She doesn't need to play 35-40 minutes. Hell nobody on the team is playing those sorts of minutes, they will all mostly be around 20 anyway. And the games will likely all be blowouts so none of that matters in the long run.

She could play 15-20 minutes and viewership, jersey sales, sponsors, etc would sky rocket. Womens basketball at the olympic level is mostly meaningless since there is pretty much no chance they lose. Might as well use this as an opportunity to capitalize on your popular players and increase exposure.

Clark and even Reese should have been on that team.

Yeah y'all never played no damn organized sports and it shows. Complacency like a mfer. Clark playing the same amount of minutes as A'ja Wilson?

 

[Rev]

happy 35th birthday to the LEGEND

 

[Spades Of Aces]

This is bad, bad logic. I think last night proved she is not ready for the physicality of the WNBA and thus not close to ready for the physicality of international play. She got benched in the 3rd quarter last night for awful defense and didn't return to the game.

Ultimately, if Caitlin, her fans, and the league want her WNBA career to last for a decade+ then she gotta use that Olympic break to start hitting the weight room.

Imo I think that she would be fine would getting that early exposure in the Olympics. Even if she doesn't end up playing that much, it's still beneficial to her progress in becoming one of the best women's basketball players ever. So my opinion is still the same, strike while the iron is hot. Take advantage of the opportunity being presented.

 

[Spades Of Aces]

Because it's not gonna be enough just to have her on the roster sitting on the bench like Shorty Doo-Wop. It's why Tim Tebow couldn't ever be viewed as a backup to his fanbase. It's why Kaepernick could never just be on a practice squad.

the fate of women's basketball doesn't hang in the balance in this tournament. After this shyt is over, she'll be back in the WNBA playing in front of these big ass crowds. And that will continue UNLESS Caitlin Clark turns out not to be as good as we thought, which already justifies why she shouldn't be on this team now. This is the only league where the most popular player isn't a top 15 player in the league. Not in the NBA, not in MLB, not in the NFL, not in MLS. Now, that will change by the time 2028 hits (though I predict what's happening to CC will start happening to JuJu.)

I think it would be more than enough to have her there. She would still get in some good playing time and early exposure on the USA team with learning from the vets. I see it as a win/win if she was on there. But now that I think about it, she's a reserve so it's still possible she could end up playing.

 

[mag357]

Did you watch the crowd tonight? It was mostly lifeless. You could tell most of the people came to see Clark, but weren’t basketball fans. And they definitely weren’t fans of the Sun, currently the best team in the league.

And she’s NOT an efficient shooter. The reason why she was so great in college is because she was a volume shooter. Steph Current never shot below 40% in college, and only did it one time in an injury shortened season. Clark’s 3 point shooting percentage dropped last year but she attempted…… over 13 per game.

She routinely had 13-29 games and 8-20 from 3 games. That shyt won’t fly in the WNBA. No coach or teammate will allow it.

And she doesn’t play defense. She can’t go to her left, she doesn’t have great handles. She isn’t that fast or quick. But people expect her to make some magical transformation this late in the game?

Really?

This isn’t some straight from high school or one and done player.

Right now, the media is promoting and fans/eyeballs are promoting and paying for LOSING. How long do you think people are going to buy it?

Damn... I thought I wrote this sh*t lol

 

[dontreadthis]

Isn’t Griner an international criminal? How is she on the olympic team?

Taurasi in her 40s. Too damn old. She was on olympic team 20 years ago.

Not putting Clark on team is just stupidest possible decision.

So crazy the parallels of how NBA players treated Wemby to how WNBA players are acting towards Clark. Women are some straight haters

I see it took no time at all for this asinine CAC talking point in defense of Clark to get spread here

 

[jwinfield]

I find it funny that the Olympic team being a meritocracy has gone out of the window now that CC hasn’t been selected. There are players that didn’t make the squad that are better players than her and have more a reason to feel like they’ve been snubbed.

The USA WBB team has won the last 5+ Olympics so having her ride the bench for another gold medal isn’t going to make this matter more.

Shannon had a very different take when Shacari didn’t make the team four years ago.

 

[jwinfield]

I see it took no time at all for this asinine CAC talking point in defense of Clark to get spread here

Britney got a weird case why is she around to support CC making it

 

[StatUS]

Y'all say Clark don't matter but most of these post are talking about Clark

What should be done is making a Catilyn Clark mega thread or something so we can back to the purity of the woman's game

 

[93 til]

She doesn't need to play 35-40 minutes. Hell nobody on the team is playing those sorts of minutes, they will all mostly be around 20 anyway. And the games will likely all be blowouts so none of that matters in the long run.

She could play 15-20 minutes and viewership, jersey sales, sponsors, etc would sky rocket. Womens basketball at the olympic level is mostly meaningless since there is pretty much no chance they lose. Might as well use this as an opportunity to capitalize on your popular players and increase exposure.

Clark and even Reese should have been on that team.

The 2024 Olympics is not the perfect storm for Caitlin Clark and women's basketball the way people are making it out to be. Why? Because her game isn't there yet to take advantage of her popularity.

What people seem to gloss over is the fact that she was actually the ONLY college player to receive an invite to try out. She couldn’t try out for the team because of Iowa's run at the Final 4 taking place during Team USA Training Camp. What precedent does that set for the rest of the league if she gets a roster spot without even trying out for it?

Even then Team USA told Caitlin that the first month of the WNBA season would serve as her tryout for the Olympics. She didn't make it.

On the flipside, let's say Team USA did send her the invite. If she is struggling to get a shot off in 3 games against Dijone Carrington, then what is she gonna do against the best of the best during camp?

Her game is basic. Going left? It's a step back 3. Going right? She might drive even though she isn't a great finisher. Her handle is trash. No mid range. Not very strong. Slow foot speed. Not very athletic. A traffic cone on defense. Her game isn't there yet, but with time she could be, but right now her focus should be rest and development.

If she getting her shyt ran whenever she plays a team that's average and up then what do yall expect to happen when she has to practice against the best? She won't crack the rotation. Caitlin would get maybe 5 minutes on this team, if that.

Folks need to be honest with themselves. Do you care about the WNBA or do you simply care about Caitlin Clark? Because I find it very disingenuous for the narrative to be that Caitlin Clark is solely responsible for the growth of the WNBA and women's basketball as a whole when the discourse says otherwise. How can we say she is growing the league but the media doesn't actually talk about the LEAGUE, just her?

Right now I have no faith that Caitlin being on Team USA during the Olympics would actually serve anybody other than Caitlin based off of the discourse that is surrounding the WNBA right now.

Also, people that say that women's basketball could use the viewership boost probably weren't apart of the 7.9 million that tuned in for the gold medal game at the 2020 Olympics.

One common opinion is how having Clark in Paris would improve viewership and grow women’s basketball. The argument is that she should be there for marketing. Looking at previous women’s basketball viewership at the Olympics, though, you might be surprised how many people have watched before Clark’s arrival on the scene.

Here are the average viewership numbers for the last four women’s basketball gold-medal games:

2021 (Tokyo): 7.9 million viewers (which includes out-of-home measurement, a change Nielsen made in 2020);

2016 (Rio): 8.1 million viewers;

2012 (London): 10.2 million viewers;

2008 (Beijing): 5.9 million viewers.

The women’s gold-medal game between Team USA and Japan in Tokyo in 2021 tipped off at 10:30 p.m. Eastern on NBC, amid COVID, and still drew nearly 8 million viewers. The U.S. win over Spain in 2016 tipped at 2:30 p.m. ET on a Saturday. (The gold-medal game from Paris will tip off at 9:30 a.m. ET on Aug. 11. That’s not ideal, but I bet the viewership number is still strong if the U.S. team makes it.)

The all-time Olympic women’s basketball viewership record, NBC confirmed this week, was the prime-time window on August 4, 1996, when NBC aired the U.S. defeating Brazil 111-87 in the gold-medal game in Atlanta. The entire viewership window for that prime-time bloc averaged 23.4 million viewers and never dipped below 19.5 million for any quarter-hour of the game. That team was the jet fuel that led to the formation of the WNBA in 1997.

Multiple things can be true at once, which easily gets lost in an era of tribalism. Would Clark add viewership in Paris? Unquestionably. The data for her college and WNBA games confirms this. There is a good-faith argument that women’s basketball would grow with Clark as an Olympian.

Molly Solomon, NBC’s executive producer and president of their Olympics production, offered some welcome nuance about the prospect of having Clark on her airwaves this summer in Paris.

“Her impact on viewership would be undeniable and maybe even historic,” Solomon told The Athletic six weeks ago, “but I do think it speaks so much to the depth of the WNBA that it’s a question whether she’s going to make the roster. I think it’d be amazing if she could. But I really feel like (NBC has) been lifting up women’s Olympic basketball for a long time. We’ve always put the game on really high-profile platforms, and we’re going to do the same thing here.

“When people ask me about what are the most fascinating storylines for these Games, the women’s team is going for its eighth straight gold medal,” Solomon continued. “That’s unprecedented in any Olympic sport. They haven’t lost a game since 1992. It’s amazing, that streak. So adding Caitlin to that team would create even more intrigue, just getting more people to realize the greatness of this team.”

That’s my point on viewership. The U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team is already in a class of its own — 54-0 since 1996 in Olympic play — and the interest has been there for multiple cycles. The notion that few watched before Clark is absurd and inaccurate.

There's a chance Caitlin is gonna be added as an alternative. The fans of the sport understand that she's not at the level yet to earn significant playing time. However, if the rest of America can't handle the decision of the selection committee to leave her off the initial roster, then do yall really think they're ready for the image of Caitlin riding the bench?

 

[OGBobbyJohnson]

 

[Youngdev]

She doesn't need to play 35-40 minutes. Hell nobody on the team is playing those sorts of minutes, they will all mostly be around 20 anyway. And the games will likely all be blowouts so none of that matters in the long run.

She could play 15-20 minutes and viewership, jersey sales, sponsors, etc would sky rocket. Womens basketball at the olympic level is mostly meaningless since there is pretty much no chance they lose. Might as well use this as an opportunity to capitalize on your popular players and increase exposure.

Clark and even Reese should have been on that team.

Yall delusional


So in those 10 min she plays maybe, she gonna go crazy enough to make that little girl in Russian want to play ball and go cop her jersey some how lifting up the the salaries for everyone in the wnba

Yall realize how nuts that sounds

What she gonna do in those 10 min that no other player is gonna do to get everyone so hyped , that’s gonna grow the game internationally

Yes she is an exciting player and a draw but that was built off seasons and highlights and games and crazy stat lines that we never see and tons of logo threes, none of that shyt is gonna happen in 10 min of action

She was also built up off racial right left blue red American culture none of that shyt is gonna matter at the Olympics