Not even three full months into her WNBA career, Caitlin Clark is perhaps the most famous figure in women’s basketball.
During a decorated college career at Iowa, Clark captivated much of the country and drew millions of new eyes to the sport. While regularly pulling up from well beyond the 3-point line — and sometimes closer to midcourt — Clark became the most prolific scorer in women’s college basketball history, finishing her four years at Iowa with 3,951 points, shattering the previous Division I record by more than 400 points.
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – JUNE 23: Caitlin Clark #22 of the Indiana Fever warms up before the game /ah at Wintrust Arena on June 23, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Quinn Harris/Getty Images)© Quinn Harris, Getty Images
Though her team never won a national championship — it fell in the NCAA title game in each of her final two seasons — Clark left Iowa as a reigning two-time national player of the year and four-time all-American.
After going to the Indiana Fever with the No. 1 overall selection in the 2024 WNBA Draft, Clark has boosted the visibility not only of her team, but the league as a whole, regularly playing in front of sold-out crowds and forcing games to be moved to larger arenas to accommodate the increased ticket demand.
As omnipresent and magnetic a figure as Clark has become, though, there’s at least one prominent basketball event where she won’t be found: on the roster of Team USA Basketball for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Is Caitlin Clark in the Olympics?
Clark will not participate in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, as she was not among the players selected for the United States’ women’s basketball roster.
Given her ever-growing profile, Clark’s exclusion from the roster attracted widespread attention and drew some sharp criticism. In the aftermath of the decision from USA Basketball, Christine Brennan of USA TODAY Sports wrote that “this great opportunity to publicize international women’s basketball has been eliminated.”
“I’ve seen some bad team and athlete selection decisions in the 40 years I’ve covered the Olympics, but this is the worst by far,” Brennan wrote. “Then again, we probably shouldn’t be surprised. As we’ve known for years, the last amateurs left in the Olympic Games are the people running them.”
Carey Wasserman, president of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, added to that chorus when he said that Clark not being among the players selected is “a missed opportunity because she’s clearly a generational talent at a time when the world was ready for it.”
The U.S. Olympic team is chosen by a six-member panel.
Why didn’t Caitlin Clark make the Olympic team?
For all the angst and ire Clark’s exclusion from the roster has generated, there are understandable reasons why she ultimately didn’t make the cut.
The U.S. is a juggernaut internationally in women’s basketball, winning the gold medal at every Olympics since 1996. During the 2020 Tokyo Games, the Americans won each of their six games and bested their opponents by an average of 16 points per contest. They earned their quarterfinal, semifinal and championship victories by an average of 19.7 points, including a 15-point win against Japan in the gold medal game.
The U.S. roster heading into Paris is particularly loaded. Each of the 12 players has made at least two WNBA all-star games, with A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart — both two-time — WNBA MVPs, anchoring the squad. Every member of the team is significantly more experienced than Clark, with the Liberty’s Sabrina Ionescu as the youngest player at 26 years old. Positionally, there wasn’t room, either, as six of the 12 Olympic inclusions are guards who, like Clark, are capable lead ball-handlers.
To reinforce how difficult it was to make the roster, particularly at guard, Clark may very well not even be the biggest snub. Guard Arike Ogunbowale, the WNBA’s second-leading scorer at the time the roster was finalized, also didn’t make the team.
Early in her rookie season, Clark was struggling with certain facets of her transition to the WNBA at the time the team was publicly unveiled. She was averaging an impressive 16.8 points, 5.3 rebounds and 6.3 assists per game, but she was regularly plagued by turnovers, averaging a WNBA-high 5.6 per game, and was shooting just 32.7% from 3, a subpar mark for a player whose offensive game is predicated on shooting from distance.
Clark’s play has improved considerably over the past month. Entering the WNBA all-star break in late July, she was averaging a league-best 8.2 assists per game and dished out a game-high 10 assists in the 2024 WNBA All-Star Game. Her 19 assists in a July 17 loss to the Dallas Wings set a WNBA record. Clark’s progress has elevated her team, as well, as the Fever came into the all-star break 10-7 in its past 17 games after a disastrous 1-8 start to the season. But those developments, impressive as they are, came after the Team USA roster was set.
While she was invited to the national team camp in April, she wasn’t able to attend, as it coincided with Iowa’s appearance in the Final Four.
South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley, who coached the Tokyo 2020 team and is a member of the selection committee who put the 2024 Paris Roster together, said on Sunday that Clark would be in “really high consideration” to make the Olympic team if it had to be put together again.
“As a committee member, you’re charged with putting together the best team of players, the best talent,” Staley said to NBC’s Mike Tirico. “Caitlin is just a rookie in the WNBA and wasn’t playing bad, but wasn’t playing like she’s playing now. If we had to do it all over again, with the way she’s playing, she would be in really high consideration of making the team because she’s playing head and shoulders above a lot of people.
“She’s shooting the ball extremely well. She’s an elite passer. She’s just got a great basketball IQ. And she’s a little more seasoned in the pro game than she was two months ago.”
Clark, for her part, was publicly accepting of not making the team.
“I’m excited for the girls that are on the team,” Clark said to reporters on June 9. “I know it’s the most competitive team in the world and I know it could have gone either way — me being on the team or me not being on the team. I’m going to be rooting them on to win gold. I was a kid that grew up watching the Olympics, so it will be fun to watch them. Honestly, no disappointment. It just gives me something to work for; it’s a dream. Hopefully one day I can be there. I think it’s just a little more motivation. You remember that. Hopefully when four years comes back around, I can be there.”
Even when taking her inexperience into consideration, there’s still an argument that Clark should have gotten one of those 12 spots.
Though she’s just a rookie, first-year players have been on the U.S. team in past Olympics. Diana Taurasi in 2004, Candace Parker in 2008 and Stewart in 2016 all played on the national team as rookies and did so months after being taken with the No. 1 overall pick in the WNBA draft — just like Clark.
Clark’s exclusion, though, could ultimately be beneficial for the Fever.
“The thing she said was, ‘Hey, Coach, they woke a monster,’ which I thought was awesome,” Fever coach Christie Sides said to reporters on June 9. “She’s young, she’s going to have so many opportunities in the future.”
U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team 2024
Though Clark’s not among them, the U.S. women’s basketball roster for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris features some of the biggest, most accomplished names in the sport. The group figures to be a significant favorite to win its eighth-consecutive gold medal.
Here’s the full 12-player roster that will be representing the U.S. this summer, along with their position and WNBA team:
- Napheesa Collier, forward, Minnesota Lynx
- Kahleah CoPper, guard/forward, Phoenix Mercury
- Chelsea Gray, guard, Las Vegas Aces
- Brittney Griner, center, Phoenix Mercury
- Sabrina Ionescu, guard, New York Liberty
- Jewell Loyd, guard, Seattle Storm
- Kelsey Plum, guard, Las Vegas Aces
- Breanna Stewart, forward, New York Liberty
- Diana Taurasi, guard, Phoenix Mercury
- Alyssa Thomas, forward, Connecticut Sun
- A’ja Wilson, center, Las Vegas Aces
- Jackie Young, guard, Las Vegas Aces
