Leaving Caitlin Clark off the Team USA women's basketball roster for the 2024 Summer Olympics is not the end of the world.
Yet shutting the rest of the world out from watching Clark is a mistake – an unnecessary mistake – one that will follow the team to Paris. That's exactly how this will play out from now until July 26 and beyond.
The timing could not be more clumsy. The Athletic reported Clark is expected to be left off the team hours after she scored 30 points with seven 3-pointers in Indiana's 85-83 victory against Washington. Then again, that is after a week full of nauseating discourse after Chennedy Carter knocked Clark to the floor during a game against the Chicago Sky on June 1.
Team USA will have to defend this decision long after the gold-medal game is played. Clark has brought unprecedented attention to the women's college basketball game and WNBA. Yes, a strong rookie class with Cameron Brink, Angel Reese, and more has contributed to that growth, but don't get it twisted: Clark is the center of that attention. Brink and Hailey Van Lith are on the Team USA 3-on-3 team. Clark did not make the cut.
That is an attention-grabbing move, like it or not, and there will be more than enough fallout to talk about.
MORE: NBA commissioner Adam Silver wants Clark 'treated fairly'
Why was Caitlin Clark left off the Olympic team?
A'ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart, Diana Taurasi, Brittney Griner, Alyssa Thomas, Napheesa Collier, Jewell Loyd, Kelsey Plum, Jackie Young, Sabrina Ionescu, Chelsea Gray, and Kahleah Copper – the 12 players selected for this year's team – might want to prepare their respective answers for that question now. Those will be pre-packaged statements run on a loop, and it will create more of a distraction than having Clark on the team in the first place.
Six of those players were on the 2020 team. Plum and Young were on the Olympic 3-on-3 team in 2020, and Ionescu, Thomas, Collier, and Copper are the first-time players. There was a spot for Clark on that team – no matter what those deflections might be.
There might be a narrative about a "slow start" for Clark – one in which she averages 16.8 ppg, 6.3 assists, and 5.3 rebounds with a 32.7-percent shooting percentage. That's for a team that finished with a 13-27 record last season and played nine games in 14 days. Hey, the last star of this magnitude for an Indiana pro sports franchise went 3-13 as a rookie starter.
How did that turn out for Peyton Manning? Clark will be just fine long-term in the WNBA.
MORE: Angel Reese says people watch women's basketball for more than 'one person'
How will Caitlin Clark snub impact Team USA?
It's not like leaving Clark off is going to cost Team USA victories on the court. Team USA has won seven straight gold medals and has not lost a game in Olympic competition since 1992.
In the 2020 Olympics, Team USA was 6-0 and won its games by an average of 16.5 points per game – a number that increased to 19.7 points per game in the medal round.
This team is loaded. Wilson, Cooper, and Collier average more than 20 points per game this season, and there is more than enough veteran star power on the team to cruise toward another gold medal. Taurasi (36.0 percent) and Plum (34.7) have shot better from 3-point range this season than Clark, so the argument could be made that this team does not need Clark in Paris right now.
But none of those players' presence will be missed more than Clark. This is a missed chance to test that international power.
MORE: Did Caitlin Clark deserve WNBA Rookie of the Month?
Why leaving Caitlin Clark off Team USA is a mistake
More people would have watched Team USA on the court if Clark was on the team. That is indisputable, but to what extent? The Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2020 was the least-watched ever, in part because those games were postponed because of COVID-19.
Leaving Caitlin Clark off Olympic team is terrible for NBC Sports, which is paying billions for U.S. TV rights.
— Michael McCarthy (@MMcCarthyREV) June 8, 2024
She would have absolutely super-charged Olympic TV audiences the way she did in college and now in the pros.
Short-sighted doesn't begin to describe this decision. https://t.co/bRLVA6ZEbB
Given the increase in women's college basketball and WNBA ratings, this would be a legitimate opportunity to showcase the women's game to the rest of the world – even if Clark were just a role player. It limits opportunities for more growth for the game, however incremental that would be.
On April 7, four-time Team USA gold-medalist Lisa Leslie told Sporting News that Team USA needed to figure out a way to get Clark on the roster.
Leslie was on the 1996 Olympic team, one that came a year after the WNBA began play. That team – which also featured Sheryl Swoopes, Dawn Staley, and Rebecca Lobo – influenced the growth of the game is the women's equivalent of the Team USA men's basketball Dream Team in 1992.
"I never want to forget the history of women's basketball," Leslie told Sporting News. "That was our time. We got the WNBA launched off, and now it's these women's time. It's Caitlin Clark's time. We – as the veterans – are supportive and proud."
Clark's time in the Olympic spotlight will have to wait. In the present tense, that will lead to more discourse about the reasons why she was left off, and make no mistake, everybody is going to give those opinions. Is it really about performance? Is it jealousy? Politics? All of that is coming, but that won't answer the question.
Why would a game that has been looking for growth – and has found it – snub its best up-and-coming rookie for the Olympics? If the answers include paying dues or respecting veterans who before Clark and incoming fans need to know their place, then that is a self-destructive concoction that will only lead those viewers to watch something else. The Olympics has gymnastics, track and field, swimming, and several other sports to latch on to. That's exactly what they will do. Nobody likes to be told how to watch sports when the sole reason should be enjoyment.
On the court, Clark is a joy to watch. She has done that with 3-pointers, full-court passes, and an enthusiasm that has attracted more young fans to the game. The viewership speaks for itself.
Instead, Clark will be a footnote on this team, win or lose, like Shaquille O'Neal and the Dream Team. Why wasn't he picked over Christian Laettner? It didn't matter of course, but it would have been cool to see. We are still talking about it today.
Now, you'll have to wait until 2028 in Los Angeles to see Clark on the Olympic stage. It's a lot of things, but unnecessary tops the list.
