The 2024 WNBA All-Star Game will take place on Saturday, July 19, and the format is a bit unusual compared to what audiences are accustomed to. Instead of pitting each conference's top players against each other, the WNBA All-Stars will compete against the U.S. Women's Basketball team that will head to Paris for the 2024 Olympic Games in short order. It's a fun twist on the traditional All-Star format that went swimmingly when the W gave it a test run ahead of the Tokyo Games a few years ago.
Those who have not been tapped into the news of the WNBA season may notice something that seems off to them, however—Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark, the apple of the W's eye, is not on the Olympic roster's side. Instead she's competing against them as part of the WNBA All-Star team.
After all the talk of her play coming out of Iowa, after she broke the single-game assist record as a rookie, how could this be?
Why isn't Caitlin Clark going to the Paris Olympics?
The simplest and most correct answer is experience. Clark has never represented the United States in international play, so she has no experience in that realm, which is important given they play by FIBA rules at the Olympics and not WNBA rules. But there are a few WNBA players making their Olympic debuts this summer. So that can't be the only reason, right?
Right. Because the other side of Clark's inexperience is that she was unable to participate in any Team USA practices or training camps since the last Olympic games. She undoubtedly would have been invited and participated— if she wasn't busy taking Iowa to consecutive Final Four runs over the last two college basketball seasons. And with the WNBA season going on, there would have been no time for Clark to get in a practice or two if she were named to this year's team before heading to Paris.
Clark undoubtedly has a very bright Olympic future ahead of her. But for this year's games, her inexperience with FIBA and a complete lack of familiarity with her potential teammates and head coach Cheryl Reeve's system combined to lead Team USA to look a different direction.
None of the above thoughts are merely observations from this writer, either. The chair of the selection committee, Jen Rizzotti, told The Athletic that experience was a very strong factor in picking who would go to Paris. Rebecca Lobo laid out on ESPN just how much Team USA activity Clark has missed by virtue of competing late in March Madness tournaments.
Could the case be made that Clark is good enough to figure it out? Or that the attention she brings as a lightning rod for women's basketball discourse is worth a roster spot? Absolutely, that case can be made. That case was made, in all likelihood, when the selection committee deliberated over whether to include Clark.
But Team USA elected to go with familiarity, experience, and chemistry over all else. So Clark will get a month off after the All-Star Game instead of heading to Paris—something she may welcome considering she's been playing high-level basketball for, effectively, eight straight months.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Why Isn't Caitlin Clark Going to the Paris Olympics?.
