Caitlin Clark Didn’t Make Team USA. But She’s Starting to Find Her Footing in the WNBA.

If you think that the discourse around Caitlin Clark is exhausting, try being her on the court. Since the start of 2024, Clark has played nearly 1,400 minutes across 39 games for the Iowa Hawkeyes and Indiana Fever. That included an extended NCAA tournament run in March and April, and 11 WNBA games in her first 20 days because the league was thirsty for an early ratings boost. By comparison, Kate Martin, who played with Clark at Iowa and was drafted by the Aces this year, has played under 1,000 minutes despite having a similar schedule. Clark has tallied 402 minutes in just the WNBA, while other notable rookies—such as Angel Reese, Aaliyah Edwards, and Cameron Brink—haven’t yet passed the 300-minute mark.

Clark has played an unreasonable amount of basketball over the past six months, but little of the conversation around her has anything to do with what she does on the floor. Some have criticized her collegiate stardom and the fact that it’s stealing attention away from more accomplished hoopers. Then there’s the reality of the market share she occupies, being a white woman in a predominantly Black league. But despite the legitimacy of those points, much of this discussion has been led by people who have little regard for on-court action in the WNBA, or the prosperity of women’s basketball.

Clark’s early growing pains since she hit the WNBA have only poured more gasoline on the fire. Her shooting numbers are down from her time at Iowa, and she’s turning the ball over at a concerning clip. Then over the weekend, it was reported that USA Basketball left her off the Olympic roster that’s headed to Paris later this summer—a decision that has been called a “stupid” snub (a major overreaction), and a missed opportunity for the women’s game. Clark hasn’t appeared too upset by it, though.

Maybe she’s just putting on an unbothered face in public, but it’s easy to take Clark at her word. Because the consolation prize for missing out on a shot at a gold medal is some much-needed time off. The WNBA will be shutting down for a month during the Olympics, which means Clark will get her first extended break from the court since Iowa started training camp last fall. And that can’t come soon enough for this year’s no. 1 draft pick. Clark is fifth in the WNBA in minutes played so far this season, and opponents have made sure those minutes have been as grueling as possible. Clark has been targeted by opposing teams—facing aggressive tactics that other players, rookies or vets, don’t typically see. But that hasn’t been a result of “jealousy” or players looking to pick on Clark. Rather, opposing coaches have been the ones desperate to stop Clark from dominating games like she did at Iowa.

Throughout her 12 games as a professional so far, Clark hasn’t been nearly as efficient as she was in a Hawkeyes uniform. But many aspects of her game have already translated to the pro level. She’s leading all rookies in points per game (16.8), assists per game (6.3), and 3-pointers made. She’s second in steals and third in blocks. She’s also tied for third in rebounding. In a 85-83 win over the Mystics on Friday, Clark became the first WNBA player to reach 200 points and 75 assists in her first dozen games.

“It’s definitely been a whirlwind over the course of the past few months—even throughout my senior season in college, too,” Clark said after shootaround on Friday. “I try to take [the accomplishments] in as best I can. That’s something that never really gets old for me.”

Clark’s unique style of play is what has allowed her to reach such historic benchmarks. The reigning rookie of the month already has the best range of any shooter in the league. She leads all players with 34 makes from beyond 24 feet, and she’s the only player who’s taking and making 3s from beyond 30 feet. She’s made eight while the rest of the league has combined for just four—and three of those shots were desperate heaves at the end of the shot clock. Only Diana Taurasi has attempted and made a 25-footer in the normal rhythm of the offense.

Clark’s overall shooting numbers lag far behind the wild pace she set at Iowa, but her deep shooting figures are awfully similar. During her final season in Iowa City, she made 35 percent of her attempts of at least 25 feet. She’s made 34.1 percent of her shots from the same range in the WNBA. And Clark is hitting her deep 3s off the bounce, which we don’t typically see in this league. Over 50 percent of her makes from deep have been unassisted, which ties with Natasha Cloud of the Mercury for the league lead. (Though Cloud is shooting just over 25 percent from deep.)

Clark has also brought her signature push-ahead transition passes to the WNBA. The Fever are about middle of the pack in fast-break points, and Clark’s full-court vision is a big reason.

But it hasn’t all been good for Clark: She had a bit of an issue with turnovers in college, and that’s become a full-blown problem in the pros, where she leads the league with 5.6 turnovers a game. Opponents are routinely picking Clark up in the backcourt—even when she doesn’t have the ball—and when she receives a ball screen, teams often throw two defenders at her and play three-on-four off the ball. That’s a better plan against Clark than the “drop” coverage that most guards see—and the standard defense that Clark saw in college. Here’s an example from Iowa’s Elite Eight win over LSU. Angel Reese hangs back to protect the paint while her teammate on the perimeter is left alone—only for Clark to hit a 3.

Per Synergy, Clark saw a trap on just nine of 570 pick-and-roll plays during her final season at Iowa. I don’t have official numbers for her first 12 WNBA games, but it certainly feels like she’s seen more than that in that span alone. Here’s a nine-minute fan-made breakdown of the looks Clark has faced early in her pro career.

These traps have created many of Clark’s turnovers. The pressure has too often led her to pick up her dribble early—a sign she’s not totally confident in her handle in the face of more experienced opponents. She’s also been stripped of the ball by pesky defenders in the backcourt enough times for it to become a concern. Like any rookie, Clark has holes in her game that must be filled. Ballhandling is at the top of the list.

Still, Clark’s turnover issues are a bit overblown. She leads all rookies in usage rate, which means she has the ball in her hands a lot. That’ll drive up anyone’s turnover numbers. And playmaking guards with high assist totals tend to also rack up turnovers. Last year’s assist leader, Courtney Vandersloot, has turned the ball over on 18 percent of her possessions this season, per WNBA Stats. That’s just two percentage points lower than Clark.

And Clark’s teammates have played a role in her turnover rate. They’ve fumbled on-target passes at a high clip and aren’t always ready when Clark threads a ball through traffic. Part of that is due to spacing. Too often Clark will be caught in a blitz, and two Fever teammates will be poorly spaced, allowing one defender to guard multiple players at once:

These mistakes are things that can typically get cleaned up in practice, but due to the Fever’s condensed early schedule, they weren’t able to practice in between most games. Head coach Christie Sides, in her second season leading Indiana, has had to install the playbook on the fly. Clark said after the win in Washington that the Fever used walkthroughs and shootarounds to run through plays. But a break in the schedule last week finally allowed for some time on the practice court, where Clark and the team made some adjustments.

“We worked a lot versus the blitz,” Clark said on Friday night. “We’ve just been getting blitzed so much on ball screens this year so it’s good to get in the gym and work on that with our 4 and 5 player and myself and [Erica Wheeler or Kristy Wallace]—whoever’s taking care of the ball—just to get more comfortable and know our exact reads out of those. It wasn’t anything complex. It was just a simple practice and getting to be able to work on set plays, our defense, and things like that.”

Another obvious benefit of last week’s break from games was rest. Sides said her team was “beaten up,” mentally and physically, and the four-day break they enjoyed was about “giving them time off their feet.” The Fever players desperately needed it after a shockingly busy start to the season. Indiana didn’t get more than a day’s rest for nine of their first 11 games, which included two back-to-backs.

Most WNBA games are played with at least two days of rest, but that hasn’t been the case for Clark and her teammates this season. When Indiana has gotten time off, though, its star rookie has been a different player. We’re dealing with a small sample size here, but the splits are genuinely shocking.

With more than a day of rest, Clark has looked like a superstar. She certainly acted the part against the Mystics in front of a record-setting D.C. crowd, pouring in 30 points and dishing out six assists in a win. Clark’s performance dazzled the loudest crowd I’ve heard in my dozens of visits to Capital One Arena, including several Wizards playoff games—yes, the Wizards used to make the playoffs. The building erupted when she hit her first 3, a stepback shot from deep after a scramble for the ball. And it seemed to get louder with each subsequent make. Clark finished the night with seven makes from 3. The 20,000-plus fans that packed the arena to the rafters went home satisfied.

The Mystics are not a good basketball team, as evidenced by their 0-12 record, but it’s not like they just rolled over and let Clark drop 30. Washington used all of the same tactics that Indiana’s previous opponents had. Mystics guards picked Clark up from 94 feet, they blitzed her on ball screens, and they chased her around screens off the ball. But having had time to practice against those looks, and some time to rest their legs, Clark and her teammates had answers. Clark was the star of the show, but the Fever also got impressive performances out of Kelsey Mitchell, NaLyssa Smith, and Aliyah Boston, who showed a better understanding of how to space the floor when extra defenders flocked to their star point guard. Sides was able to run more set plays, which got other players involved in the offense and got Clark some time off the ball.

“We need to get her off some screens so she doesn’t have to work so hard,” Sides said after the game. “I mean her in a drag [screen] in the middle of the floor early in the shot clock, it opens up everything for everyone else but the ball gets out of her hands.”

Sides has said the Fever have to do a better job of taking advantage of those scattered defensive looks—either by attacking the rim with more vigor or getting the ball back in Clark’s hands with second actions—and we finally got to see what that could look like against Washington.

Replicating that performance against the teams at the top of the standings will be a far more significant challenge. But the Mystics game might have been a preview of what it will look like once Indiana gets its act together and Clark fills in some of the gaps in her game. If anything, it was a reminder of why the sports world became so obsessed with Caitlin Clark in the first place.

It’s also the reason many basketball fans were bummed out by the news that Clark won’t be making the trip to Paris—even if there were more prominent snubs, including Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale, who’s averaging over 26 points a game this season. That a rookie was even considered for the loaded roster is an accomplishment. And while some will push back against the idea that she was even worthy of consideration after the inconsistent start to her W career, opposing coaches are clearly already treating her like one of the league’s best players.