One of the biggest stories in women’s basketball this past year was Caitlin Clark’s omission from the U.S. Olympic basketball team. Clark — amid an up-and-down beginning to her rookie season on the Indiana Fever — was left off the 12-woman roster, a decision that instantly became a national controversy.
Critics railed USA Basketball for keeping her off the team, citing her growing popularity as reason why she should have been on the Paris Olympics roster.
Rather than Clark, the roster included guards with more veteran guards like Jewell Loyd, Kelsey Plum, Jackie Young, Chelsea Gray, Diana Taurasi, Sabrina Ionescu, and Kahleah Copper. Each of those guys were multiple-time All-Stars — some even multiple-time Olympians. At 26 years old, Ionescu marked the youngest player on the roster.
In a Time interview with Sean Gregory, Clark admitted her initial disappointment from being left off the USA basketball roster — but made clear she rejected the notion she should have been named to the team due to her popularity.
When the rosters were finalized, the Fever boasted a 3-9 record, and Clark was in the midst of an inconsistent start to the season, a stretch that was marred by several high-turnover games and spotty shooting performances.
“I gave them a lot of reasons to keep me off the team with my play,” she said.
She also recognized the depth of talent on the USA Basketball roster.
“A point everybody was making was like, ‘Who are you taking off the team?’” Clark said. “And that was a tremendous point.”
Many media personalities insisted that leaving Clark off the roster was a mistake due to marketing reason — pointing to the visibility and attention she would inveitably bring with her to Paris.
ESPN’s Stephen A Smith and USA Today’s Christine Brennan were two of the loudest voices that admonished USA Basketball for not putting Clark on the roster from a visibility standpoint — not because the team was missing her skillset.
Why leaving Caitlin Clark off the 2024 US Olympic women’s basketball team matters, a lot. I’ve reported on the team at every Olympics since 1984. I’ve watched the stunning lack of coverage & lack of interest every time. Here are four sections of my Feb column on this exact topic: pic.twitter.com/MjwqeVQdR8
— Christine Brennan (@cbrennansports) June 8, 2024
“Now, you came home with the gold. You handled your business,” said Stephen A Smith of the USA Basketball women’s team. “But when you talk about marketing the sport, I think Team USA missed an opportunity to elevate the profile of women’s excellence in the sport of basketball.”
Clark rejected the notion that she should have been on the roster due to her individual popularity.
“I don’t want to be there because I’m somebody that can bring attention,” Clark said. “I love that for the game of women’s basketball. But at the same time, I want to be there because they think I’m good enough. I don’t want to be some little person that is kind of dragged around for people to cheer about and only watch because I’m sitting on the bench.”
In reality, Clark’s play in her rookie season ultimately demonstrated that she should have been on the team due to her basketball prowess. After the Olympic break, she tremendously improved her play, ultimately establishing herself as one of the best guards in the league, if not the best — and eventually being named to the All-WNBA First Team.
Clark averaged 23.4 points and 8.9 assists after the break, and the Fever punched their ticket to the WNBA playoffs for the first time since 2017. She recorded more assists in a single WNBA season than any player in WNBA history.
Jen Rizzotti, USA Basketball’s selection committee chair, vehemently disagreed that players’ popularity should have been a consideration.
”It would be irresponsible for us to talk about her in a way other than how she would impact the play of the team,” Rizzotti said. “Because it wasn’t the purview of our committee to decide how many people would watch or how many people would root for the U.S. It was our purview to create the best team we could for Cheryl.”
Clark’s improved post-Olympic play demonstrated she almost certainly would have been a good fit on the roster, especially considering the struggles of some of the USA team’s older players throughout the tournament.
Clark noted that being left off the roster “will definitely motivate me my entire career.”
Barring an injury, the WNBA sensation is practically a shoe-in for the 2028 roster, something she told Gregory was a “a huge, huge goal.”
But, the discourse around her exclusion never should have been centered around her popularity — or the prospective viewership boost that would have come with her inclusion.
“That whole narrative kind of upset me,” Clark said. “Because that is not fair. It’s disrespectful to the people that were on the team, that had earned it and were really good. And it’s also disrespectful to myself.”
