Caitlin Clark

14Red

14Red

Well-known member
So I'm going to put this thread out on here just to see what kind of run it gets. What amazes me is we have basically two camps on her. One is she's going to be the greatest ever - which isn't going too well so far. And the non WNBA crowd. The thing that gets me is that any seemingly negative comment towards her is immediately shot down with you're sexist and hate women's sports. Folks, she's got flaws. She's different because no one in the women's game has shot the long ball like her, but other than that, she's a pretty typical female player. She not overly quick so it's hard for her to create shots. She doesn't defend very well and will be matched up with good guards alot.
Point is jury is still out, and it will be fascinating to see how long Fever fans can endure losing. My guess is the coach will go first, as that's what happens in pro sports when you have a popular player.
 
 
14Red said:
So I'm going to put this thread out on here just to see what kind of run it gets. What amazes me is we have basically two camps on her. One is she's going to be the greatest ever - which isn't going too well so far. And the non WNBA crowd. The thing that gets me is that any seemingly negative comment towards her is immediately shot down with you're sexist and hate women's sports. Folks, she's got flaws. She's different because no one in the women's game has shot the long ball like her, but other than that, she's a pretty typical female player. She not overly quick so it's hard for her to create shots. She doesn't defend very well and will be matched up with good guards alot.
Point is jury is still out, and it will be fascinating to see how long Fever fans can endure losing. My guess is the coach will go first, as that's what happens in pro sports when you have a popular player.
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Like most of the WNBA players, she will be an afterthought in time, except for the (few) hardcore women’s basketball fans (mostly HS players and their parents). The WNBA is a massively subsidized money loser because nobody really cares. Clark will fade into the sporting world/pop culture background soon enough.
 
Really don't follow women's basketball outside of watching some NCAA tournament games, but most folks doing any critiquing have no clue what they're talking about or evaluating. And I say that as someone that figures the Clark mania will die out sooner than later due to the issues/differences between women's basketball being far more marketable at the college level.
 
Few rookies make teams, let alone actually play. And they basically go straight from the college season to whatever training camp/preason they have. I think like 13 made a team and nobody outside of Clark will score more than 10-12 points per game.

Clark is on a God awful team in a league where the talent is extremely concentrated...hence why few rookies make teams let alone play.

In the NBA you have 450 total roster slots between 30 teams, plus 90 two way deals. WNBA there are 132-144 players rostered -- most don't fill the last slot to "pay more" to the best 1-2 players on the team. For scale in terms of talent it is basically if a rookie is playing in an NBA where only the top 1/3rd of players are on teams.
 
cjb5656 said:
Like most of the WNBA players, she will be an afterthought in time, except for the (few) hardcore women’s basketball fans (mostly HS players and their parents). The WNBA is a massively subsidized money loser because nobody really cares. Clark will fade into the sporting world/pop culture background soon enough.
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1) subsidized money loser
2) lack of built-in fanbases that the college game has
3) Extremely high talent concentration -- and few to none of the players you may have cared about at the college level will break through

It's a league that's probably never going anywhere no matter how badly anybody tries to pump it. Way too many negative factors.
 
cjb5656 said:
Like most of the WNBA players, she will be an afterthought in time, except for the (few) hardcore women’s basketball fans (mostly HS players and their parents). The WNBA is a massively subsidized money loser because nobody really cares. Clark will fade into the sporting world/pop culture background soon enough.
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It may be different this time. ESPN / ABC is the WNBA's biggest fan and they have a vested interest in mainly the NBA, but also the struggling WNBA. They are pushing the marketing off the charts for a product that generally few fans want. ESPN sees an opportunity to grab new fans with Clark's popularity in the midwest. My guess is the more Clark struggles, the less those "new" fans will stick around. If she turns into an average WNBA player, they will leave in droves. Much like the NBA, while there are fans, there are also alot of detractors. I just think it's interesting watching all the flip floppers out there. Many thought Clark would make an immediate impact and be one of the greatest female players ever and I think that's very far fetched now. She's just not athletic enough to hang with even most of the average guards in the league. It really shows how special Steph Curry is on the men's side.
 
nwwarrior09 said:
Really don't follow women's basketball outside of watching some NCAA tournament games, but most folks doing any critiquing have no clue what they're talking about or evaluating. And I say that as someone that figures the Clark mania will die out sooner than later due to the issues/differences between women's basketball being far more marketable at the college level.
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I think some basketball experts (Doug Gotleib) tried to pump the brakes on her because of some flaws in her game, but most don't want to hear of it. She's got a shot that is a little quirky, it works for her, and she's not overly athletic. Now for big ten women's college basketball, she was stellar. But how many times on the guys side do we see these guys who are great at the college level, yet once you trim about 85% of the college talent and boil it down to the top 10-15%, it's a different story.
 
Wil I watch?
No.
However I did see the last minute of their game the other night when I tuned into Monday night and saw the last minute before they went to stanley cup game 7.

She is good, no doubt, you dont get to be all time leading scorer without it.

However...now she faces teams who can stop/neutralize here on a nightly basis unlike in college. Plus....you can rest assured her opponents are gunning to stop her because of the notoriety she is getting, and chips on their shoulders that she is getting P A I D and hasnt done a thing in the league.

I hope she succeeds, but the expectations are so enormous, no way she lives up to them and it at the end of the day I bet she has a 'nice career' but never comes close to what some expect
 
14Red said:
I think some basketball experts (Doug Gotleib) tried to pump the brakes on her because of some flaws in her game, but most don't want to hear of it. She's got a shot that is a little quirky, it works for her, and she's not overly athletic. Now for big ten women's college basketball, she was stellar. But how many times on the guys side do we see these guys who are great at the college level, yet once you trim about 85% of the college talent and boil it down to the top 10-15%, it's a different story.
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Depends on what one expects. Based on the first few games she's on pace (in terms of scoring) to match a whole lot of women's all-time greats in terms of rookie seasons. 17-18 ppg is about the ceiling for rookie scoring. I think only 2-3 rookies have ever scored 20+ ppg in their first season.

She turns it over a lot, and she's going to continue to turn it over a lot. She has more primary ball handling duties than at Iowa and faces a whole lot more pressure and trapping.

Unanimous ROY is a lock. The question is if the efficiency improves or not. If it does she'll end up being one of few that have ever averaged 20+ as a rookie, and it'll still be far short of expectations because the expectations were so unrealistic and unattainable.
 
nwwarrior09 said:
Depends on what one expects. Based on the first few games she's on pace (in terms of scoring) to match a whole lot of women's all-time greats in terms of rookie seasons. 17-18 ppg is about the ceiling for rookie scoring. I think only 2-3 rookies have ever scored 20+ ppg in their first season.

She turns it over a lot, and she's going to continue to turn it over a lot. She has more primary ball handling duties than at Iowa and faces a whole lot more pressure and trapping.

Unanimous ROY is a lock. The question is if the efficiency improves or not. If it does she'll end up being one of few that have ever averaged 20+ as a rookie, and it'll still be far short of expectations because the expectations were so unrealistic and unattainable.
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I think it's too early to tell. Reece had a pretty good first week and her team has won.
 
nwwarrior09 said:
Depends on what one expects. Based on the first few games she's on pace (in terms of scoring) to match a whole lot of women's all-time greats in terms of rookie seasons. 17-18 ppg is about the ceiling for rookie scoring. I think only 2-3 rookies have ever scored 20+ ppg in their first season.

She turns it over a lot, and she's going to continue to turn it over a lot. She has more primary ball handling duties than at Iowa and faces a whole lot more pressure and trapping.

Unanimous ROY is a lock. The question is if the efficiency improves or not. If it does she'll end up being one of few that have ever averaged 20+ as a rookie, and it'll still be far short of expectations because the expectations were so unrealistic and unattainable.
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This is a "feel it out" season. She's going to score alot of points because she has the green light. Reminds me of Trae Young. Alot of bad shots but scores, except Young can create alot more for his teammates. If she scores alot and they lose all the time, that's not going to fly. You can only blame teammates and coaches so long, so we'll see what happens. Yes, she's likely going to adjust some to the league, but will it be enough.
 
LELL said:
I think it's too early to tell. Reece had a pretty good first week and her team has won.
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Good first week, but seems very likely to be at best the 3rd best player on her team when the year is in review. Probably more like the 4th or 5th.

Clark is going to be 1 of 1 among rookies in terms of role, responsibilities, opportunities, etc., for better or for worse.
 
Victor Wembanyama first 4 games averages 16.3 ppg, 7.5 Reb, 1.5 Asst, 2.3 Blks, 46% FG, 26% 3FG, 70% FT and 4.8 TO
Clark … 17.0 ppg, 4.0 Reb, 5.5 asst, 0.8 Blks, 41% FG, 34% 3FG 100% FT, and 6.5 TO

Pretty close to me … VW turned out fairly good
 
nwwarrior09 said:
Good first week, but seems very likely to be at best the 3rd best player on her team when the year is in review. Probably more like the 4th or 5th.

Clark is going to be 1 of 1 among rookies in terms of role, responsibilities, opportunities, etc., for better or for worse.
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With all these high expectations, , you think she was worth the hype?
 
y2h said:
A couple games into her career she's being labeled a bust 😂
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It will be interesting to see how long the WNBA will continue having private jets for their travel. Wonder what’s the I’ve under on this one.
CC isn’t exactly setting the WNBA on fire from what I’m hearing. I haven’t been watching but I’d love to hear from those that are now tuning in to see her play on the WNBA.
 
Very up and down, but IMO that's between the type of offensive usage and opponent player quality.

Turns it over a ton getting blitzed or trapped on ball screens. Didn't really think of her as a ball screen creator in college, and the defenders are a whole lot better now. Think that is an enormous ongoing adjustment.

As mentioned before, player quality in comparison would be like playing against the top 1/3rd of the NBA at all times. The five players on the floor for the other team are almost always all top 100 players, and if it's a good team, it's probably more like the starting lineup is all top 30-40 players, i.e. they would all be all-stars if there were as many WNBA teams as NBA teams. It is a massive step up in competition.
 
Continued private jets, media coverage, etc. all depends on what she does or does not do. And if people that watched her college games (some level of built-in fanbases) continues to watch or not.
 
y2h said:
She's also a rookie. Many male players that went on to be productive quality assets struggled early. How bout we give her a year or two before determining her worth.
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Fair enough, but there's a lot of pressure on her and the WNBA is betting heavily on her. I wonder how much the WNBA is paying for private jets for all the teams to travel to their games?
 
I’ve never seen pro players get face guarded the way she does. Only really have seen it at the high school level. Also her coach is awful
 
Cedar_Point said:
I’ve never seen pro players get face guarded the way she does. Only really have seen it at the high school level. Also her coach is awful
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It's really early on, but so far, she takes alot of shots, 3 point % is in the bottom 1/3rd of the league and she leads the league in turnovers by a mile. The true test will be how her teammates continue to react to her. All the antics is ok for college, but in the pro level, your teammates are not necessarily your friends and many have friends on other teams. There is no doubt in my mind the coach will be the first to go. I don't know if she's a good coach or not, but pro players get pro coaches fired all the time. Most franchises are not strong enough to stand up to players.
 
LELL said:
Not going well for Clark. If she keeps it up she could be suspended.
sports.yahoo.com

Indiana defense goes AWOL as Fever fall to 1-8 despite Caitlin Clark's 20 points

A third-quarter collapse doomed the Indiana Fever in a 103-88 home loss to the Seattle Storm on Thursday night.
sports.yahoo.com sports.yahoo.com
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I continue to be fascinated how she is reported on. Yes, she had 20 points. But on 6-17 shooting and 7 turnovers, which was burried in the last sentence of the article. It's ok to criticize her.
Also, she does not appear to be the most coachable player. I know that doesn't mean much to most people but I don't know that she's going to be good enough to just push away authority. She needs to lighten up. Her teammates are constantly pulling her aside and talking to her and her body language isn't great. People keep applauding her for not taking guff from others, but sometimes you need to stand down and just play the game.
 
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