Leaving Caitlin Clark home from the Paris Olympics was the right decision for the U.S. team.
Right decision for Clark, too.
While Clark would no doubt have drawn more eyeballs to the women’s basketball tournament, the Olympics are not meant to be a participation trophy. It should be the best players who go and — hard as it might be for her fans to hear this — Clark is not one of the 12 best U.S. players right now.
She is too turnover prone, her total (67) and average (5.6 per game) are well above those of anyone else in the WNBA. Those miscues would likely multiply at the Olympics because she’d be firing passes at players with whom she’s not had a chance to develop timing or chemistry.
Clark has never even practiced with the senior national team; she was invited to the final training camp before roster selection, but had to miss it because it was, as it has been the last few years, during the Final Four. Clark, you might recall, was a little busy that weekend, taking Iowa to the title game for a second year in a row.
Clark’s defense also remains a work in progress, which could make her a liability. And as much as she struggles with the physicality of the WNBA, the international game is even rougher.
Yes, the U.S. women have been dominant, winning the last seven Olympic titles without dropping a game. But that also puts a massive target on their backs and opponents were only emboldened in February, when the Americans needed a buzzer beater from Breanna Stewart to squeak by Belgium.
The same Belgium team happens to be in the U.S. women’s group in Paris, along with Tokyo silver medalist Japan.
So no, Team USA couldn’t spare a roster spot for Clark to help gin up attention and publicity. There’s simply too much at stake and the talent pool in front of her too deep.
“I know it’s the most competitive team in the world,” Clark said Sunday. “… Honestly, no disappointment.”
But this is as much about Clark as it is Team USA. She does not need to go to Paris, where she’d be at the end of the bench and the center of the circus. She needs rest.
Desperately.
Because Iowa made the title game in Clark’s last two seasons, and did a European trip in between, she’s had all of about two months off in the last 15 months. And her introduction to the WNBA has been frenetic, with Indiana playing 11 games in 20 days and Clark leading the league in minutes played.
Clark’s isn’t your normal game mileage, either. Besides being the focal point of every defense, both at Iowa and now with the Indiana Fever, she has been at the center of a white-hot national spotlight that keeps getting bigger.
LeBron James and Lionel Messi might be the only other athletes who can understand the burden Clark carries. It’s not enough for her to play well, she has to elevate women’s basketball and be the champion for all of women’s sports, too. She’s been thrust, unasked, into national discourses about race and privilege, and opinions about her have become something of a Rorschach test for a polarized country.
“The hardest part about being Caitlin Clark? I’d say is having to feel like you’re always on,” Clark said in ESPN’s “Full Court Press” docuseries, which followed her, Kamilla Cardoso and UCLA’s Kiki Rice last season.
Clark has handled all of this with exceptional grace. But no one needs the three-week break for the Olympics more than she does. To sleep and rest her body. To hit the weight room so she can withstand the banging and battering that’s a staple of the W. To actually practice with her teammates.
Part of the reason Clark has had so many turnovers already is because the Fever is a young team that’s still trying to develop chemistry. But that’s hard to do with a schedule that has left very little room for practice.
“It’s going to be really nice,” Clark said when asked if the break will benefit her. “I’ve loved competing every single second, but it’s going to be a great month for my body to, first of all, get rest and get healthy and just get a little time away from basketball and the craziness of everything that’s been going on. Just find some peace and quiet for myself.
“But then additionally, a great opportunity for us to work to get better. A great opportunity for myself to get in the weight room, to work on the court and work at things that I want to get better at, that I maybe didn’t have time, going from college to the pro season,” she added. “So I’m looking forward to it.”
That doesn’t mean Clark won’t use missing out on Paris as motivation. Now and in the years to come. When she learned she didn’t make the team, Fever coach Christie Sides said Clark told her, “Coach, they woke a monster.”
Good. Because there will be a time, very soon, when the U.S. women need Clark. Right now, however, the best way Clark can help Team USA, and herself, is by getting some rest.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.
