Caitlin Clark

Red14 keeps crying about her stats.
1)The Fever won 13 games last year. They have won 8 this year in half the games.l and are currently a playoff team. Thats the only stat that matters.
2) that video is about 10 of her turnovers, none of which are her fault
3) Clark isn’t known for shooting. She is known for scoring. Big difference
 
Cedar_Point said:
Red14 keeps crying about her stats.
1)The Fever won 13 games last year. They have won 8 this year in half the games.l and are currently a playoff team. Thats the only stat that matters.
2) that video is about 10 of her turnovers, none of which are her fault
3) Clark isn’t known for shooting. She is known for scoring. Big difference
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Just trying to provide some balance my friend.
 
Clark’s game last night against Vegas (2x defending champs) was the highest attended regular season WNBA game in 25 years pushing nearly 21k in attendance.

Clark received more all-star votes this year than the top 14 vote getters last year received COMBINED. Over 7x as many votes received as the top vote getter last year, and total votes cast seem to be around 6x as many as last year.
 
nwwarrior09 said:
Clark’s game last night against Vegas (2x defending champs) was the highest attended regular season WNBA game in 25 years pushing nearly 21k in attendance.

Clark received more all-star votes this year than the top 14 vote getters last year received COMBINED. Over 7x as many votes received as the top vote getter last year, and total votes cast seem to be around 6x as many as last year.
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Never said she wasn't popular. 4-12, 1-7, 6 R, 11A, 6 TO
 
14Red said:
Never said she wasn't popular. 4-12, 1-7, 6 R, 11A, 6 TO
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I’m quite aware of what the stat line is for yesterday. It’s the only game that I’ve watched more than a few minutes in passing.

This was probably a pretty good individual game in spite of not shooting all that great. Had a double-double with close to a 2:1 assist:turnover ratio against by far the best WNBA team. Vegas has by far the best player and probably has 4 of the 7-8 best players in their league. I was surprised Clark’s team played close for 3+ quarters before getting running over late.
 
nwwarrior09 said:
I’m quite aware of what the stat line is for yesterday. It’s the only game that I’ve watched more than a few minutes in passing.

This was probably a pretty good individual game in spite of not shooting all that great. Had a double-double with close to a 2:1 assist:turnover ratio against by far the best WNBA team. Vegas has by far the best player and probably has 4 of the 7-8 best players in their league. I was surprised Clark’s team played close for 3+ quarters before getting running over late.
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At the professional level, the double double is a tired stat. If you play more than 30-35 minutes and have the ball in your hands much, you'll likely get a double double just on an accumulation of stats. A triple double is also in the mix.

The one thing that seems to be glaring in watching Clark and Vegas's Plum is the athleticism. Plum has a burst, she has a bounce. Clark does not. She goes about the same speed and is unable to get to the rim often or create shots. Kelsey Mitchell has a burst and a bounce, she can get to the rim and still pull up. You don't think Plum had some extra incentive last night?
 
Kelsey Plum plays off the ball a lot more, and has a much more athletic/muscular body type. Probably weighs as much as or more than Clark while being 3-4 inches shorter.

Entirely different player aside from comparisons related to perimeter shooting/scoring. Probably the most relevant comparison between the two is that it took Plum 4-5 years to become a serious scorer as a pro. Rookies rarely put up numbers in the WNBA due to how condensed the talent is.
 
Clark’s rookie stats 34min 16.0 ppg 5.7 reb 7.1 asst 5.6 to 39 fg% 33. 3p% 88.5 ft%
Plum’s rookie stats 23 min 8.5 ppg 1.9 reb 3.4 asst 2.5 to 34.6 fg% 36.5 3p% 87.0 ft%
 
nwwarrior09 said:
Kelsey Plum plays off the ball a lot more, and has a much more athletic/muscular body type. Probably weighs as much as or more than Clark while being 3-4 inches shorter.

Entirely different player aside from comparisons related to perimeter shooting/scoring. Probably the most relevant comparison between the two is that it took Plum 4-5 years to become a serious scorer as a pro. Rookies rarely put up numbers in the WNBA due to how condensed the talent is.
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Plum is 5'8", didn't realize she was that short.
 
Bull GreenDog said:
Caitlin had a triple double of 19 points 12 rebounds and 13 assists yesterday to lead the Fever to a win over the Liberty, who were 17-3 coming into the game.
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And the first triple double by a rookie in WNBA history. And only the 38th ever. Which is kind of surprising to an outsider. But then have to remember they play a 40 minute game and not 48 minutes like the men's game. Racking up the assists and rebounds in 40 minutes is a lot harder to do. That's a rebound or assist every two minutes for the entire game.
 
14Red said:
Ok, now you're just being difficult. With EVERYTHING you've seen so far, on both side, aren't you just a little disappointed in what she's done so far? She's an average 3 point shooter in this league, and that's her calling card? When you pull up the stats on yahoo, and filer shooting %, she's on page 2 of 3 for overall FG% and 3PTFG%. THAT'S WHAT SHE DOES!!!! SHE'S A SHOOTER!!!
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She's a rookie who jumped right into pro ball with no off season. Let's give her time to make adjustments and work on her game before throwing her on the scrap heap.
 
14Red said:
So the million dollar question moving forward will be, is shooting 30 ft. and beyond at 34% good for your team? That's debatable. Many compare her to Curry, but Curry shoots MUCH better than she does, or has to this point, and Curry creates his own shot, has a midrange. Curry's lowest 3 point percentage in a season was just a few years ago at 38%, and his career is at 42 1/2%. At this point Clark has not shown the ability to create and make mid range shots. Does the attract alot of attention, absolutely and that's good for offense, but where's the point it become detrimental to the rest of your team's offense?
As to your point of being top twenty in all those categories, some of those are just products of playing more minutes than 90% of the league. She's blossomed into a better passer than some expected, but is that more of a product of not being able to get around defenders so you automatically become a passer? She's a very willing passer, which is a good thing. Some with her credentials would force all kinds of awful shots because that's all they know.
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While everyone was raving about her deep threes in college her passing ability caught my eye. I don't think it's really a skill set that blossomed it was always there.
 
29 points, 13 assists, 5 rebounds, 5 steals and 3 blocks yesterday, shooting 7 of 14 overall and 5 of 9 from 3. 14 of her 29 points came in the fourth quarter. The Fever were down by 21 entering the fourth but lost by only five.

She's now 2nd in the league in assists per game with 7.4
 
20 points and 13 assists while shooting 50 percent from the field in yesterday's win over the Mercury. The Fever are now 10-14 after starting the season 3-10.

There are 16 games remaining in the regular season, and Indiana has a realistic shot to make the playoffs.
 
Interested to see how the back end of her season goes. Due to the Olympics there’s a funky mid-season month long break in the schedule here, and I would think it would benefit rookies a lot. This should be the most down time players like her have had since before the last college season.
 
The Clark narrative continues to fascinate me. 10 games into the season, the coach was terrible, her teammates couldn't do anything, that's why she had all the turnovers. Yet now that she is piling up assists, there's nothing about her teammates who can't catch and finish plays?? Defense? I didn't watch last night's game but both the opposing guards had a combined 48 points, and Dallas is tied to being the worst team in the league? However you look at the coverage and it's Clark's record 19 assists? Just asking for some balance. She's also currently shooting 40% from the field overall and just 32.7% from 3 point land and leading the league in turnovers.
 
14Red said:
... However you look at the coverage and it's Clark's record 19 assists? Just asking for some balance. She's also currently shooting 40% from the field overall and just 32.7% from 3 point land and leading the league in turnovers.
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Third most minutes played in the league. Not difficult to piece that together to reason those stats you find disconcerting. She has no help coming off the bench. The team was not that good to begin the season. They are improving as a team likely because they now have a PG that pushes them. If she PGed more conservitively and leaned into her scoring guard side, would the others improve? Not likely.

This kid has been changing minds amongst the pros that were disparaging her. What do they see, you fail to?
 
eastisbest said:
Third most minutes played in the league. Not difficult to piece that together to reason those stats you find disconcerting. She has no help coming off the bench. The team was not that good to begin the season. They are improving as a team likely because they now have a PG that pushes them. If she PGed more conservitively and leaned into her scoring guard side, would the others improve? Not likely.

This kid has been changing minds amongst the pros that were disparaging her. What do they see, you fail to?
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Not disparaging her at all. She's a fantastic player. I'm just asking for some balance because all the rest of you guys see is the stats, the good ones. Gotta look at them all.
 
14Red said:
The Clark narrative continues to fascinate me. 10 games into the season, the coach was terrible, her teammates couldn't do anything, that's why she had all the turnovers. Yet now that she is piling up assists, there's nothing about her teammates who can't catch and finish plays?? Defense? I didn't watch last night's game but both the opposing guards had a combined 48 points, and Dallas is tied to being the worst team in the league? However you look at the coverage and it's Clark's record 19 assists? Just asking for some balance. She's also currently shooting 40% from the field overall and just 32.7% from 3 point land and leading the league in turnovers.
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Of course she's far from perfect. She's also a rookie and far from a finished product. She also happens to be the best rookie ever in this league, and is setting records galore.

You hated on LeBron for years, now you nit pick on Caitlin. Not sure why you dislike the true greats, seems to be some weird jealousy thing. It is pretty strange to start a thread on a young player and then complain when people post praise for her.
 
14Red said:
Not disparaging her at all. She's a fantastic player. I'm just asking for some balance because all the rest of you guys see is the stats, the good ones. Gotta look at them all.
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What's on the otherside of the teeter-totter, you don't think is being recognized? She's a rookie. She's learning the pro game. Who has denied that?

Turn-overs can be individual mistakes. They can be team mistakes. Most even casually knowing the game can see these numbers are due to a team growing, not just an individual.

I mentioned that she is third in the league in minutes played. Setting asside the fatiguing nature of the minutes alone, neither of those ahead of her have less than three years experience and none handle the ball as much as the PG.

The current consternation might be, not participating in the 3-pt contest. "Larry" wouldn't refuse. That's the comparison seems to be popular. I can see a tactic to it, a way to show her worth on attendance by NOT being in the competition. Ionescu gave her the excuse sort of. I personally don't see anyone getting hurt participating in a 3-pt contest and that's what Clark made her fame on, not assists. I can see opting out of the game on the bet that Clark is the first Olymipic alternate but not the contest that says put-up or shut-up and is what the fans really want to see. They want ice, not fire.

Is that enough to balance the teeter-totter for you? :D
 
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wolves82 said:
You hated on LeBron for years, now you nit pick on Caitlin. Not sure why you dislike the true greats, seems to be some weird jealousy thing. It is pretty strange to start a thread on a young player and then complain when people post praise for her.
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The commonality might not be so much they were predicted to be great (LeBron anyhow) but that they came in with a RABID fan base that wouldn't shut up and loved the phrase "I told you so." That's the contrarian's bane.

I can still recall the old Puddle threads, these annoying posters out of NE Ohio talking about some kid going to be the greatest ever. They didn't hedge opinion. In some sports that's viewable because you see the kid playing against the greats. Tennis, soccer, that can happen. It doesn't happen in b-ball. We, the genaeral public don't see 14 year olds playing against pros.

I saw him play a couple times in Toledo, regional finals I believe. Still didn't see all-time great. We'd seen Jimmy Jackson play high school ball. In hindsight, the reasons I swung and missed was probably a combination of not wanting to see someone supplant Jackson, having only marginal ability to judge talent, and having seen it on a team James kept balanced against other high school talent in regionals.

It was easy to see James was going to be real good. He played such a balanced game with his teamates, those seeing just a game or two and with marginal ability to recognize talent didn't see all his individual skills and more importantly, his ability to handle fame.

Those annoying fans were right. With Clark, probably also.
 
wolves82 said:
Of course she's far from perfect. She's also a rookie and far from a finished product. She also happens to be the best rookie ever in this league, and is setting records galore.
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Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes. No dispute here.
 
wolves82 said:
You hated on LeBron for years, now you nit pick on Caitlin. Not sure why you dislike the true greats, seems to be some weird jealousy thing. It is pretty strange to start a thread on a young player and then complain when people post praise for her.
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I think it's very difficult to compare LeBron and Clark at this point. I respect the heck out of LeBron as he is "one of the" greatest players of all time, not "the" best as most honks keep saying. My issue with LeBron is he left to go group up with guys to win, where as most greats in the past won where they started. To me that's HUGE. I am far from the only person that doesn't like LeBron's personality. Basketball player skill wise, father, grinder - all top shelf. We'll never see a guy play at his level for that long, never again.

Now Clark is a really good rookie player in the WNBA. Outside of that, the comparisons are over. Has she lifted the Fever? A little. Probably not anywhere near what most thought. She's got great vision and is a terrific passer, she didn't have to be that in college because she could get her own shots off. But her shooting has been under par, and she struggles on defense. Can she lift a team to be a winner? I think we already know that's likely not going to happen. Just do me a favor and look at the entire body of work, not just the headlines put out by the WNBA media.
 
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