A commemoration of Caitlin Clark’s meteoric career at Iowa and evaluation of the start of her WNBA rookie season.
A commemoration of Caitlin Clark’s meteoric career at Iowa and evaluation of the start of her WNBA rookie season.
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Late next week, the WNBA will send out ballots for its end-of-season awards. Sixty-eight media members will have eight days to submit selections for 10 different awards, including Most Valuable Player, Defensive Player of the Year, and first- and second-team All-WNBA.
What I’m about to say will never happen, and I’m equally aware it would be wildly unpopular on the fringes of Caitlin Clark’s and Angel Reese’s fan bases, where rational discussion goes to die and a compliment of one player is viewed as a criticism of the other. But, what the heck. Let’s do it anyway.
For me, this season’s Rookie of the Year award should be shared by Clark and Reese, not only for their performances on the court, where each has done things never before seen in the league’s nearly three-decade history, but also for their impact off it. The two have been like neodymium magnets, attracting viewers and generating revenue at a dizzying rate.
Longtime league followers will argue the W’s popularity was trending up before the rookies’ arrival, which is true. But the level of interest among mainstream media and casual fans was negligible for much of that time. Broadcast partners even treated the W as an afterthought, neither promoting nor amplifying it with much vigor.
Today, however, the league has a regular place on the ESPN rundown sheet, and its stars are sought-after guests on popular podcasts. Is that solely because of Clark and Reese? No. But is it largely because of them? Yes.
Their Q Scores coming out of college were as high or higher than anyone in the W, the byproduct of a rivalry that began two seasons ago when Reese and LSU defeated Clark and Iowa for the NCAA championship. In transitioning to the W, the two brought all those eyeballs with them, raising the league’s popularity to a point not seen since its inaugural season.
Their influence can be seen in attendance figures. Clark, the all-time leading scorer in NCAA history, has helped the Indiana Fever go from ranking 11th among 12 teams in average attendance in 2023, at 4,066 spectators, to No. 1 at 16,978, according to Across the Timeline. Not surprisingly, the Fever were the opponent in July when the two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces attracted 20,366 fans to T-Mobile Arena to record the largest WNBA crowd in 25 years.
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The fact that Indiana is also the top-drawing road team should not come as a surprise to anyone — the Fever are averaging 14,837 spectators away from home, according to Across the Timeline — but it might surprise casual observers to learn that the struggling Chicago Sky rank No. 2. The main reason? They’re led by Reese and her 4.1 million Instagram followers.
That’s why I believe they should share the award. Years from now when think pieces are done on the growth of the league, all roads are likely to lead back to 2024 and the arrival of Clark and Reese. What better way to recognize that than by having their names side by side in the record books?
I don’t care what comparisons you make both @Reese10Angel and @CaitlinClark22 deserve the Rookie of the Year Award! The pressure and the weight of this season has forever changed the @WNBA and both rookies rose to the top and exceeded all our expectations! Take a bow ladies
— Lisa Leslie (@LisaLeslie) September 2, 2024
I get why some would prefer to reduce the vote to on-court performance. If forced to do so, my vote, if I had one, would go to Clark. Her ability to impact games as a shooter, passer and pace-setter is remarkable, and she only figures to get better. Beyond that, she has helped to make the Fever relevant for the first time in years, rallying them from a 3-10 start to a team that could be a problem in the playoffs.
Indiana has won four in a row, six of seven, and is 9-3 since July 6. During that stretch, the Fever defeated four of the top five teams in the standings — New York, Connecticut, Seattle and Minnesota — as well as a dangerous Dallas team. At 17-16, they’ve clinched a playoff spot for the first time since 2016, are over .500 for the first time in more than five years and have scored 100 or more points in back-to-back games for the first time in franchise history. That means something.
Individually, Clark has broken the franchise’s rookie scoring record, the W’s single-game assists record (19 vs. Dallas) and is on pace to break the league’s single-season assists mark. She currently ranks first with an average of 8.4 assists per game. More tellingly, she has scored or assisted on 37.3 percent of the Fever’s points, according to ESPN, which would break the WNBA record if it holds.
Reese’s game is not as diversified or polished, but that should not be taken to mean it’s any less dominant. When you break league records — not just rookie records — once 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 known, is a relentless glass cleaner who holds league records for total rebounds and offensive rebounds. She also is a walking double-double whose 15 consecutive games with double digits in points and rebounds broke Parker’s mark. She currently has 25 double-doubles, which is three shy of the league record set by Alyssa Thomas in 2023.
GO DEEPER
Angel Reese sets WNBA single-season rebounding record
But talking about Reese or Clark solely in terms of statistics seems insufficient considering their importance to the league. Some have tried to compare their arrival to that of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird in the NBA in 1979. Although similar in some ways — they were rivals who competed against each other in an NCAA final; also one is Black, the other White — there is a subtle yet significant difference. Johnson and Bird helped resuscitate a dying league, while Clark and Reese have built on a foundation that was already in place, which is no small feat. The accomplishment becomes even more impressive when looking at the growth of the league.
Consider: The W tracks the demographic makeup of its audiences and what it calls complementary viewership marks (CVM) among diversified groups. In the first month of the season, its CVM grew 60 percent year over year among people of color. The most represented demographic groups in that category — Hispanics and African Americans — had a 96 percent and 67 percent year-over-year increase in viewership, according to the league.
“The growth of diverse audiences is also resulting in deepened and more frequent single-user engagement across digital platforms,” the league said in a statement at that time. “WNBA App monthly active users is up 613 percent year-over-year, and League Pass subscriptions more than tripled in the first two weeks of the season with the highest average minutes watched in league history.”
I’d argue those numbers are bigger than any player statistic, which is why Clark and Reese should share the award.
(Photo of Caitlin Clark, left, and Angel Reese: Jeff Haynes / NBAE via Getty Images)
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5743551/2024/09/04/caitlin-clark-angel-reese-wnba-rookie-of-year/
