Featured Columnist IVSeptember 18, 2024
Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE through Getty Pictures
Girls’s basketball legend Sheryl Swoopes pushed again on the concept Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark is “dominating” the WNBA as a rookie.
“To me, what Caitlin’s been in a position to do in a brief time frame has been very spectacular,” she mentioned on Gil’s Enviornment of Clark’s enchancment after the All-Star break. “… I nonetheless do not suppose she’s dominating, however she’s a distinct participant than she was within the first half of the season.”
Swoopes added that she “by no means questioned if Caitlin was participant,” referencing past comments she steered neither Clark nor the Chicago Sky’s Angel Reese would instantly put up the sort of numbers they did in faculty after they arrived within the WNBA.
Followers of Clark and the Fever will understand this as Swoopes taking one other slight on the 2024 No. 1 total decide due to the tedious saga linking the 2.
There is not any query Clark turned a nook in her first yr after the WNBA’s midseason break. Since play resumed, she has averaged 24.3 factors, 5.5 rebounds and eight.0 assists, and he or she has broken a slew of staff and league data. That is the participant everybody anticipated popping out of Iowa.
With what she has executed over the past month, to say the 6’0″ guard is a dominant participant is not a sizzling take.
On the identical time, making the counterargument is not completely unfair, both.
Clark remains to be a piece in progress on protection, so she two-way star like A’ja Wilson, Alyssa Thomas or Napheesa Collier. Her league-leading help tally is accompanied by the most turnovers in a single season (220 and counting) by a large margin. And he or she’s capturing 41.7 % from the ground and 34.1 % from past the arc, neither of which is elite for a guard.
Greater than something, this whole dialog is likely to be leaping the gun contemplating Clark hasn’t but been examined within the playoffs.
If the Fever are bounced within the first spherical and their finest participant does not have a terrific exhibiting, then it can inevitably shift how individuals analyze her sport. Ought to her regular-season stats carry over into the postseason, then again, her standing as a “dominant” expertise shall be a lot much less debatable.
