Grant Williams, who’s at the moment on the bottom on the Paris Olympics, referred to as out the sharp disparity in media protection between the boys’s and ladies’s basketball groups.
“The distinction between the boys’s vs girls’s postgame is disrespectful and the ladies deserve higher,” Williams wrote on X shortly after the U.S. women beat Australia to advance to the gold medal sport.
If we actually wish to transfer the W sport ahead it’s not simply upto followers it’s additionally the protection they obtain. Being behind the scenes right here at Olympics the distinction between males’s vs girls’s postgame is disrespectful and the ladies deserve higher. Internationally and domestically!
— Grant Williams (@Grant2Will) August 9, 2024
The truth is that the U.S. girls’s basketball staff is among the most dominant groups on the Olympics. They’ve gained 60 consecutive Olympic video games, have led by double-digits for practically your complete match, and can go for an eighth straight Olympic gold medal on Sunday.
The roster contains a few of the sports activities greats: Diana Taurasi, the WNBA’s all-time main scorer; A’ja Wilson, the indeniable finest participant within the WNBA; Kelsey Plum, who broke the all-time NCAA Division I scoring report; Sabrina Ionescu, probably the greatest shooters on the planet; Breanna Stewart, as adorned an athlete as any — and the checklist goes on.
Nonetheless, when the staff’s greatness is talked about, many individuals’s first intuition is to carry up the participant who’s not on the roster: Caitlin Clark.
It’s an comprehensible intuition. In any case, Clark has introduced unmatched consideration to girls’s basketball this 12 months, with WNBA viewership and ticket gross sales each at an all-time excessive. It’s additionally indeniable that had Clark made the roster, there can be extra media protection of those video games.
And, from a basketball standpoint, she may have simply made the roster — after a considerably sluggish begin to her rookie season, she hit her stride within the weeks main as much as the midseason break, and is now averaging 17.1 factors and a league-high 8.2 assists per sport on the 12 months. Final month, she even broke the WNBA’s single-game help report with a 19-assist outing in opposition to the Wings.
Daybreak Staley, the present coach of South Carolina’s girls’s basketball staff and a member of the USA Basketball Olympic committee, just lately acknowledged that Clark would have probably made the roster had she hit her stride just a little bit sooner.
“As a committee member, you’re charged with placing collectively the very best staff,” Staley mentioned. “Caitlin is only a rookie within the WNBA. She wasn’t taking part in unhealthy, however she wasn’t taking part in like she’s taking part in now. If we needed to do it another time, the way in which she’s taking part in, she’d be in actually excessive consideration of constructing the staff.”
However, there’s no cause for USA Basketball to stress the choice an excessive amount of — not from a basketball standpoint, in any case. That’s as a result of Group USA has been steamrolling their opponents, most just lately defeating Australia by 21. They seem like a shoe-in for gold, and everybody has performed their function practically completely.
The continuity on the roster is obvious, as is the the buy-in from all twelve gamers on the roster. A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart have been two of probably the most dominant gamers of the Olympics, and Jackie Younger has been wonderful on each ends of the ground. All twelve gamers have been common contributors, and the staff’s defensive connectivity has been simple.
So, whereas one may argue that Clark ought to have been on the roster, the gamers on the roster are clearly doing their job and successful basketball video games. Olympic choice selections shouldn’t be made with marketability in thoughts — they need to be made purely from a basketball perspective. When the U.S. roster was assembled, Clark was simply starting her skilled profession.
If there’s a scarcity of pleasure about this U.S. girls’s basketball staff, it’s not as a result of the chosen gamers aren’t thrilling to observe — it’s as a result of these gamers haven’t been sufficiently coated all through their careers to the identical extent as Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and a few of the youthful gamers within the sport. Their tales haven’t been advised on the nationwide stage, no less than not on the scale and with the eye that Clark’s has.
That’s to not say there haven’t been particular person media entities and reporters who’ve devoted their lives to this protection — as a result of there definitely have been revolutionaries on this discipline. This protection simply hasn’t benefited from the identical stage of monetary funding.
From a basketball perspective alone, Kahleah Copper is as thrilling because it will get. Kobe Bryant referred to as Jewell Loyd the Gold Mamba for an excellent cause. When Sabrina Ionescu is feeling it (which is commonly) her three-point capturing is nothing wanting spectacular. And in case you’re a basketball purist, you’ll be mesmerized by Jackie Young’s two-way excellence.
Grant Williams famous that after the ladies’s sport, there have been “3-4 media retailers pushing the sport ahead”, whereas after the boys’s video games, there have been between 60 and 80 media retailers doing postgame protection.
“Viewership isn’t the wrestle, it’s the advertising and marketing,” he wrote.
He additionally importantly famous that if individuals had acknowledged Diana Taurasi’s greatness, they wouldn’t have questioned this system’s choice to call her to the Olympic roster.
A part of which is why i’m saying that if there was higher advertising and marketing individuals would then perceive why DT was picked over her. Nobody questioned Larry chicken making the dream staff roster at his age together with his again harm and his efficiency. That’s as a result of ppl knew him to be a legend! https://t.co/7RPD8T5Csq
— Grant Williams (@Grant2Will) August 9, 2024
The excellent news is that previous points with media protection are nonetheless correctable. The 12 gamers on the U.S. girls’s basketball roster are proficient, marketable, and price investing in. Their video games are participating, as are their personalities — when given the prospect to meaningfully showcase themselves.
Most significantly, they’re getting ready to an Olympic gold medal — this system’s eighth straight — and lots of of them will quickly contend for a WNBA championship. It’s not too late.
Caitlin Clark will quickly be probably the greatest gamers on the planet, if she’s not already. She’s virtually a lock for the following Olympics. However, her ascension within the sport also needs to spur followers and media alike to be taught concerning the older gamers who’ve lengthy been doing this — the gamers who’ve been hitting deep threes, meting out loopy passes, and taking part in this sport at an elite stage for a really very long time.
Unsure you recognize these gamers? A fantastic place to begin can be tuning into the U.S. girls’s staff gold medal sport on Sunday.
