Reality arrives.
In the words of Diana Taurasi, spoken to Scott Van Pelt on SportsCenter, Caitlin Clark will be held accountable when she gets to the WNBA. After four years of dominating college football, Clark begins the next chapter of her career at the bottom of the ladder as one of the youngest players in the most talented league in the world. Whatever the overall arc of Clark’s career, it’s unlikely she’ll be the best player on the court every night like she did at Iowa.
Hype won’t be a problem for Clark; she is used to feeling pressure and seizing the moment. She was a top-five recruit coming out of high school and ended up becoming the leading scorer in college basketball history. She proclaimed her goal as a freshman to return Iowa to the Final Four for the first time since 1993, and she did it — twice. As the public’s eyes turned to her during each successive game of the Hawkeyes’ 2024 NCAA Tournament, Clark continued to win, breaking viewership records in the process.
She has already been the center of attention. The only difference now, with Clark primed to be the Indiana Fever’s No. 1 pick, is that the players she plays against will be able to do something about it.
“It’s a different game, there’s an adaptation period, there’s a grace period that you have to give to rookies when they come into the league,” Taurasi said during the team’s training camp. USA Basketball in Cleveland. “We’ve had some of the greatest basketball players of all time, and it takes two or three years to get used to a different game (against) the best players in the world.”
The biggest change Clark will encounter in the WNBA is the physicality and strength of her opposition. We saw Clark struggle against West Virginia’s aggressive ball pressure in the NCAA Tournament, resulting in him posting his worst assist ratio (3-6) of the season. UConn’s Nika Mühl put her in a straitjacket in the Final Four, picking Clark up all over the court and limiting Clark to her lowest scoring total (21 points) of 2023-24. And South Carolina’s trees made it difficult for Clark to finish inside, as she missed 10 2-point shots.
This is the type of defense Clark can expect to encounter every night in the WNBA, starting with Gamecocks alums Tiffany Mitchell and Tyasha Harris in Indiana’s opener against Connecticut. Additionally, while Clark was able to hide in the Hawkeyes’ defense, deferring the toughest matchups to Gabbie Marshall, too many offensive threats exist on every team in the pros. She will have opposing players trying to take her off the dribble and into her body on that side as well.
Continue reading.
GO FURTHER
What could Caitlin Clark’s WNBA transition from Iowa look like?