Caitlin Clark was “lucky” to have been snubbed by Team USA at last year’s Paris Olympics – as she needed some well-earned time to rest.
The Indiana Fever point guard was a popular name in the women’s basketball world before she even entered the WNBA having shattered record after record in college with the Iowa Hawkeyes. After being the first draft pick, Clark enjoyed a stellar debut season as she won Rookie of the Year.
Her exceptional skill and talent meant that her name was one of the first to be shouted out for the women’s national basketball team traveling to Paris for the Olympics. However, the rookie wasn’t chosen, and many were baffled that she didn’t end up on the 12-person roster.
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Speaking in 2024 about the Team USA snub, Clark said: “It’s going to be good for me to do my own thing and have my own space. I kind of want to just stay out of the spotlight.”
More recently, Clark has elaborated on this point and told NFL icons Travis and Jason Kelce on their New Heights podcast that she actually needed the time off to rest. The 22-year-old said: “It’s just different but I feel lucky too because we had the Olympic break so I got a month off in the middle of the season.
“We had to pause the WNBA season because the 12 girls go and play in the Olympics and everybody else, you’re not doing much. I got like a month off, which I really needed obviously, because I had been playing basketball for like a year straight. But, it’s obviously so much different from the NFL or the NBA.”
Team USA coach Cheryl Reeve also spoke about her lack of influence on the national team selection. The 58-year-old said: “I think what people don’t get about it is the coach of the national team truly has no power in the selection of the team.”
Reeve also admitted that Minnesota Lynx player Kayla McBride was unlucky to miss out on the roster too, and that the decisions come down to the wire for representing your country. She added: “I thought K-MAC had a tremendous camp and should have gone with us to Sydney and had no indication that anyone felt [differently], especially from our staff and some of the committee was in our meetings.
“It felt as if we all felt the same that K-MAC had a great camp, and not that she’d make the final roster because she still had to go to Sydney and make that final cut, [but] I learned at the 11th hour that they cut my player. And so I said to K-MAC, if there’s ever a time for people to understand that the coach has no say in it, this is one of those times.”
Clark also discussed the difference between college basketball and the WNBA, and noted that she barely got a break between one career to the next.
The 22-year-old added: “I think it was good a little bit too. You don’t have time to overthink things, it’s just like boom, boom, boom and onto the next. But at the same time, I feel like I never really ended the chapter of college, I feel like I left and [WNBA happened].
“You don’t have a lot of time to think about it so, I think that’s definitely the weirdest part of women’s professional basketball and college basketball too – it’s just that change, but that’s obviously how it has to be too.”
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