If you buy a Lambo, you need to drive it fast.
And frankly those numbers are totally meaningless. Most of the higher shooting % players play 4 ft from the basket. Think MC leading the country 2 years in a row in shooting %. Meanwhile the distance Clark shoots from destroys most defenses, and opens the floor so much that her team mates get MUCH better looks, hence they all have higher % then they would have. See MC as a case in point. On top of all that Clark has a 61% effective scoring % based on the addition of the number of three's and free throws she converts. When looking all other players in the country with a usage rate over 30% the second highest adjusted field goal % was 51%. So she's is miles ahead of any other player in the nation who carries such a large part of her teams offensive load. To a degree the same thing applies to her assist/ TO ranking. If she only threw easy passes her rate would be fine. Its her ability to create space with the over the top passes that seperates her. And frankly any coach in the league will see that with better athletes to catch and actually FINISH those plays her ratio should be much improved.
Fair enough except the TOs. Some of her passes were pretty wild, a little looser than some coaches would like. (Imagine KFz being her HC!) As for better athletes catching them she’s also going to have better defenders in the way.
To some degree on the TO's but still alot of balls fumbled away, and she could have several more assists/gm, (which is crazy givin the margin she led the nation by) which would change the percentages. Its just really hard to measure Clarks game against anyone else in college because both her shooting and passing are at a different level from what anyone else even attempts. The one thing we do know (which relates to your original thought) when they interviewed the Fever's head coach. They asked her pretty much your question about would she have to reign in the way Clark plays, and she said basically, "hell no" Were not going to bring in an extrordinary talent and then tell her not to play like herself. I'd add that "the load" on her to carry the offense won't be nearly as big given the other proven scorers on the team, which should increase her efficiency..
I really believe she is going to rip shit up. I was watching some highlights of Ionescu and she is a hell of a shooter, maybe better than Clark, but to me she doesn’t have the same speed and passing vision. Cannot wait to see it all play out.
It'll be interesting to see how much it elevates the entire team. Once other players know the ball is coming their way, they'll love her.
Another thing that people overlook. While she'll play against better defenders to some degree, (remember she always drew the best defender, or defenders), her team mates will have to be guarded better as well. She won't draw many box and ones, and Triangle and 2's because they can't just leave her team mates unattended. I actually think the floor will be even more open for her, which will be a dangerous situation for opponents given her vision, skills and Basketball IQ.....
But even you must admit that if they caught the ball and made the layup she would have 20 assists per game. AOG has bad hands, as did the center that started the season at 5
I hear what you guys are saying but they weren't all perfect passes that were "drops". Come on.
I’m not here to kill her teammates but there were a lot of fumbled passes that will convert in the wnba. She probably would have hundreds of additional assists over 4 years had the recipients been UConn/sc players.
Hundreds... Ok, now you're just being silly. Put down the koolaid
Looking back, I forgot how many fewer games were played due to Covid. 109 games in the past 4 years. 2 fumbled!cked passes per game is 218, which is hundreds. Maybe 100 because of fewer games. In any event, I would say she had many more sweet passes go unconverted than improvident turnovers, by a country mile.
Clark played in around 140 career games, and missed around 8 I believe from Covid..
I’m not sure what I was looking at! Just further makes my point. Sure seems like to me there was more than one unconverted layup or bunny per game after she found someone on a fast break or no look pass.*
Pro's- it's late July / early August so kids will be out of school.
Well then. I guess the criticism of having her join without being in the pros goes out the window.
If she averaged just 1.5 more assist per game over 4 years, which isn't unreasonable at all, that translates to roughly 200. That sure sounds like 100s to me.
I keep hearing that, but its hard to believe that they could be more physical that what many teams tried to do to her the last year or so in college. Any more physical and it would just be freakin rugby. I'm also not convinced that the "grown women " thing that some are throwing out is going to be that big a deal either. Clark played in a solid conference and played probably 15 games this year counting the tournaments against top 20 teams. College women as seniors and juniors are 23-24 years old. In their prime athletically. Certainly more then some of the 35-40 year old gals like Taurasi (41 years old) still hanging around in the league, acting like she's going to school Clark. I'd bet by nid season its Clark who will be doing the schooling......
You have to drive a lot to get to the foul line. Every team has big shot blockers in the middle.
