A commemoration of Caitlin Clark’s meteoric profession at Iowa and analysis of the beginning of her WNBA rookie season.
A commemoration of Caitlin Clark’s meteoric profession at Iowa and analysis of the beginning of her WNBA rookie season.
Purchase
Late subsequent week, the WNBA will ship out ballots for its end-of-season awards. Sixty-eight media members can have eight days to submit picks for 10 totally different awards, together with Most Beneficial Participant, Defensive Participant of the 12 months, and first- and second-team All-WNBA.
What I’m about to say won’t ever occur, and I’m equally conscious it will be wildly unpopular on the fringes of Caitlin Clark’s and Angel Reese’s fan bases, the place rational dialogue goes to die and a praise of 1 participant is considered as a criticism of the opposite. However, what the heck. Let’s do it anyway.
For me, this season’s Rookie of the 12 months award must be shared by Clark and Reese, not just for their performances on the courtroom, the place every has finished issues by no means earlier than seen within the league’s almost three-decade historical past, but additionally for his or her affect off it. The 2 have been like neodymium magnets, attracting viewers and producing income at a dizzying price.
Longtime league followers will argue the W’s recognition was trending up earlier than the rookies’ arrival, which is true. However the stage of curiosity amongst mainstream media and informal followers was negligible for a lot of that point. Broadcast companions even handled the W as an afterthought, neither selling nor amplifying it with a lot vigor.
At this time, nevertheless, the league has a daily place on the ESPN rundown sheet, and its stars are sought-after visitors on in style podcasts. Is that solely due to Clark and Reese? No. However is it largely due to them? Sure.
Their Q Scores popping out of school had been as excessive or increased than anybody within the W, the byproduct of a rivalry that started two seasons in the past when Reese and LSU defeated Clark and Iowa for the NCAA championship. In transitioning to the W, the 2 introduced all these eyeballs with them, elevating the league’s recognition to some extent not seen since its inaugural season.
Their affect could be seen in attendance figures. Clark, the all-time main scorer in NCAA historical past, has helped the Indiana Fever go from rating eleventh amongst 12 groups in common attendance in 2023, at 4,066 spectators, to No. 1 at 16,978, in line with Throughout the Timeline. Not surprisingly, the Fever had been the opponent in July when the two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces attracted 20,366 followers to T-Cell Enviornment to report the biggest WNBA crowd in 25 years.
Free, day by day sports activities updates direct to your inbox.
Free, day by day sports activities updates direct to your inbox.
Signal Up
The truth that Indiana can be the top-drawing highway workforce shouldn’t come as a shock to anybody — the Fever are averaging 14,837 spectators away from house, in line with Throughout the Timeline — nevertheless it may shock informal observers to study that the struggling Chicago Sky rank No. 2. The principle motive? They’re led by Reese and her 4.1 million Instagram followers.
That’s why I imagine they need to share the award. Years from now when suppose items are finished on the expansion of the league, all roads are more likely to lead again to 2024 and the arrival of Clark and Reese. What higher option to acknowledge that than by having their names facet by facet within the report books?
I don’t care what comparisons you make each @Reese10Angel and @CaitlinClark22 deserve the Rookie of the 12 months Award! The strain and the burden of this season has endlessly modified the @WNBA and each rookies rose to the highest and exceeded all our expectations! Take a bow girls👏🏽👏🏽
— Lisa Leslie (@LisaLeslie) September 2, 2024
I get why some would like to scale back the vote to on-court efficiency. If compelled to take action, my vote, if I had one, would go to Clark. Her means to affect video games as a shooter, passer and pace-setter is exceptional, and she or he solely figures to get higher. Past that, she has helped to make the Fever related for the primary time in years, rallying them from a 3-10 begin to a workforce that might be an issue within the playoffs.
Indiana has gained 4 in a row, six of seven, and is 9-3 since July 6. Throughout that stretch, the Fever defeated 4 of the highest 5 groups within the standings — New York, Connecticut, Seattle and Minnesota — in addition to a harmful Dallas workforce. At 17-16, they’ve clinched a playoff spot for the primary time since 2016, are over .500 for the primary time in additional than 5 years and have scored 100 or extra factors in back-to-back video games for the primary time in franchise historical past. Meaning one thing.
Individually, Clark has damaged the franchise’s rookie scoring report, the W’s single-game assists report (19 vs. Dallas) and is on tempo to interrupt the league’s single-season assists mark. She presently ranks first with a mean of 8.4 assists per recreation. Extra tellingly, she has scored or assisted on 37.3 p.c of the Fever’s factors, in line with ESPN, which might break the WNBA report if it holds.
Reese’s recreation isn’t as diversified or polished, however that shouldn’t be taken to imply it’s any much less dominant. While you break league data — not simply rookie data — as soon as held by legends like Candace Parker, Sylvia Fowles and Tina Charles, you’re in rarefied air, which is the case for Reese. The “Bayou Barbie,” as she is thought, is a relentless glass cleaner who holds league data for whole rebounds and offensive rebounds. She is also a strolling double-double whose 15 consecutive video games with double digits in factors and rebounds broke Parker’s mark. She presently has 25 double-doubles, which is three shy of the league report set by Alyssa Thomas in 2023.
GO DEEPER
Angel Reese units WNBA single-season rebounding report
However speaking about Reese or Clark solely by way of statistics appears inadequate contemplating their significance to the league. Some have tried to match their arrival to that of Magic Johnson and Larry Chicken within the NBA in 1979. Though related in some methods — they had been rivals who competed in opposition to one another in an NCAA closing; additionally one is Black, the opposite White — there’s a delicate but important distinction. Johnson and Chicken helped resuscitate a dying league, whereas Clark and Reese have constructed on a basis that was already in place, which is not any small feat. The accomplishment turns into much more spectacular when trying on the development of the league.
Take into account: The W tracks the demographic make-up of its audiences and what it calls complementary viewership marks (CVM) amongst diversified teams. Within the first month of the season, its CVM grew 60 p.c 12 months over 12 months amongst folks of coloration. Essentially the most represented demographic teams in that class — Hispanics and African People — had a 96 p.c and 67 p.c year-over-year enhance in viewership, in line with the league.
“The expansion of numerous audiences can be leading to deepened and extra frequent single-user engagement throughout digital platforms,” the league stated in an announcement at the moment. “WNBA App month-to-month energetic customers is up 613 p.c year-over-year, and League Go subscriptions greater than tripled within the first two weeks of the season with the very best common minutes watched in league historical past.”
I’d argue these numbers are greater than any participant statistic, which is why Clark and Reese ought to share the award.
(Picture of Caitlin Clark, left, and Angel Reese: Jeff Haynes / NBAE by way of Getty Photos)