Howdy y'all! The six-pack is back after chaos and holiday prep took over your boy's last Monday. The good news is we're ready for the site rebrand and feature rollout this Wednesday, and we're excited to share what we've been working on over the past few weeks with y'all and the freeloaders alike.
A lot of Caitlin Clark thoughts today, but they had to go somewhere. Onward...
1. Caitlin Clark had one of her best games as a pro — and the Fever had their best win of the season — on Saturday afternoon as Indiana ousted league-leading New York, 83-78. The Feeves trailed by as many as 11 in the second half (after blowing a 12-point lead of their own), and were down 69-59 in the fourth quarter before Clark led a furious rally in front of the home fans.
The win gave CC her first career triple-double in the WNBA (19 points, 12 rebounds, 13 assists), the first by a rookie in league history and the first ever in Fever franchise history. It's also another win over a top team as Indiana strengthens its season resume, still clawing back from their 2-9 Doom Gauntlet start to now sit at 9-13 and a tiebreaker lead for the 7th seed over, yes, the Chicago Sky (more on them in a bit). It's unlikely the Fever ever get higher than the sixth seed (currently the 11-10 Mercury), with the 5-seed 3.5 games away and owned by the Aces (7-1 in their last eight games) and nobody else fewer than five games ahead with ~20 games left to play.
Clark now leads the WNBA in "points created," or the combination of points directly scored plus the baskets she's assisted on:
...and that's as a rookie, with a surrounding cast that barely knows how to play around her and would not otherwise come close to playoff contention. It'll never get more difficult than this, and Clark is already thriving. I don't think she's in realistic MVP contention yet, but even 2025 would not surprise me.
2. With Clark finding her level in pro ball with relative ease, the discussion is now turning to Rookie of the Year, which seems like it ought to be as much of a formality as CC's parade of college accolades became... except for the Bayou Barbie in Chicago, Angel Reese, who has now set her own league record with 13 consecutive double-doubles.
Few, if any subscribers to an Iowa site are ever going to agree that Reese deserves ROY consideration over Clark, and accordingly I won't spend any time trying to convince you all she does. I believe when the dust settles, Clark will have had one of the best rookie seasons in league history, with serious consideration for *the* best on an individual level (i.e. not including a championship, which seems wildly implausible).
However... there's a sizable minority of fans who disagree, and Reese — ever a skilled provocateur — has had zero difficulty keeping them invested in her own campaign.
Insofar as this is still a two-player race, I think the three most likely factors in how this shakes out will be as follows:
A) Health. If either player misses a sizable portion of the second half of the year, the discussion becomes a moot formality. That's just how these races go. You hope it doesn't come down to that, but with both players coming off grueling senior seasons this spring, there's always potential for a bad ankle turn derailing things — if not something worse. Fingers crossed that fans of either player aren't robbed of a competition down the stretch.
B) The standings. Indy and Chicago are squabbling for the 7th and 8th seeds in the 8-team playoff, with the Fever ahead on tiebreaker as of today. The Sparks, Mystics and Wings are all fading from competition, so in a 12-team league, only Atlanta looks like it could spoil either team's postseason bid — and barring an out-and-out collapse, at least one of the Fever and Sky are dancing (or whatever the cutesy "postseason participation" term becomes for the pros). I think Indiana's recent big wins and softer back-half schedule make it more likely to finish ahead of Chicago — possibly even challenge for .500 — but it's hardly a sure thing and it would be a major point in Reese's favor if Indiana stumbles.
C) How either of them play. This may seem counterintuitive — to the point of being an indictment of the award — but I've got it down here just because both players have already established themselves as elite at what they do, and in the same way as we saw them do it in college. In other words, they're putting up numbers and none of it looks unsustainable. Maybe one of them tires out down the stretch, but the Olympic/All-Star break coming in a week or so should have both of them primed to build on their roles instead.
So for that reason, I've come around on the idea of a co-ROY. The Clarkies and Barbies would hate the idea, but I don't think Clark and Reese themselves will push much of the negativity around that. As a matter of fact, for as much as the idea of their "rivalry" gets media attention, the real hay to be made is Indiana-Chicago, much in the same way that Lakers-Celtics fed off Magic-Bird but ultimately became (again) more about the franchises themselves. We're lucky enough to see Clark and Reese as teammates on the WNBA All-Star Team as they face Team USA, and they might just mess around and dominate the thing together. And wouldn't that be a fun development in the narrative of these two as they magnify the league's popularity in the coming years.
3. One last thought train on this one, and those of you who don't care for pro wrestling can go ahead and skip to the next post in the thread now: Clark and Reese is the WNBA's John Cena vs. CM Punk.
Two stars who go about their business in very different ways:
Clark is the squeaky-clean babyface with legions of kids and casual fans in their corner, a fanbase that generates paradigm-altering amounts of money and attention. The hardcore fans are already tired of hearing about her, but in the absence of anything she's doing wrong — Clark and Cena are among the most generous with their time away from the work/ring as you'll ever find — the amount of effort the league spends in catering to that newer fanbase becomes the point of contention instead. Yes, I'm comparing WNBA lifers to the neckbeards who look down on fans who don't know who the Von Erichs or Hiroshi Tanahashi are (hey, I did tell you this one's for the wrestling fans).
Reese, meanwhile, is the tireless, caustic upstart who rails against the powers that be and uses that as motivation to succeed, and uses that to generate powerful emotional investment from a fanbase that's more than ready to point out inequities (both real and perceived). Their unconventional game leads the "old guard" to doubt them, probably too much — Reese should never have gone 7th in the draft, even with a class that loaded — and there's just no point in trying to talk anyone out of it.
And ultimately, their contrasts make them rivals, absolutely — but they also make them indispensable to each other, and their sport will be better off for how much attention both bring to the table. I'm not asking anyone to like both; bringing it back to unscripted sports, it's like asking people in the '80s to like the Lakers and Celtics. But as someone who's wanted a brighter light on women's ball for a long time now, it's healthy for the sport to see two burgeoning stars with their own approaches to greatness succeeding so early. THAT grows the game more than any one player, even Clark, can do by themselves.
[Part 2 coming in the next couple minutes... bumping up against the 10,000 character limit already. - AJ]
A lot of Caitlin Clark thoughts today, but they had to go somewhere. Onward...
1. Caitlin Clark had one of her best games as a pro — and the Fever had their best win of the season — on Saturday afternoon as Indiana ousted league-leading New York, 83-78. The Feeves trailed by as many as 11 in the second half (after blowing a 12-point lead of their own), and were down 69-59 in the fourth quarter before Clark led a furious rally in front of the home fans.
The win gave CC her first career triple-double in the WNBA (19 points, 12 rebounds, 13 assists), the first by a rookie in league history and the first ever in Fever franchise history. It's also another win over a top team as Indiana strengthens its season resume, still clawing back from their 2-9 Doom Gauntlet start to now sit at 9-13 and a tiebreaker lead for the 7th seed over, yes, the Chicago Sky (more on them in a bit). It's unlikely the Fever ever get higher than the sixth seed (currently the 11-10 Mercury), with the 5-seed 3.5 games away and owned by the Aces (7-1 in their last eight games) and nobody else fewer than five games ahead with ~20 games left to play.
Clark now leads the WNBA in "points created," or the combination of points directly scored plus the baskets she's assisted on:
...and that's as a rookie, with a surrounding cast that barely knows how to play around her and would not otherwise come close to playoff contention. It'll never get more difficult than this, and Clark is already thriving. I don't think she's in realistic MVP contention yet, but even 2025 would not surprise me.
2. With Clark finding her level in pro ball with relative ease, the discussion is now turning to Rookie of the Year, which seems like it ought to be as much of a formality as CC's parade of college accolades became... except for the Bayou Barbie in Chicago, Angel Reese, who has now set her own league record with 13 consecutive double-doubles.
Few, if any subscribers to an Iowa site are ever going to agree that Reese deserves ROY consideration over Clark, and accordingly I won't spend any time trying to convince you all she does. I believe when the dust settles, Clark will have had one of the best rookie seasons in league history, with serious consideration for *the* best on an individual level (i.e. not including a championship, which seems wildly implausible).
However... there's a sizable minority of fans who disagree, and Reese — ever a skilled provocateur — has had zero difficulty keeping them invested in her own campaign.
Insofar as this is still a two-player race, I think the three most likely factors in how this shakes out will be as follows:
A) Health. If either player misses a sizable portion of the second half of the year, the discussion becomes a moot formality. That's just how these races go. You hope it doesn't come down to that, but with both players coming off grueling senior seasons this spring, there's always potential for a bad ankle turn derailing things — if not something worse. Fingers crossed that fans of either player aren't robbed of a competition down the stretch.
B) The standings. Indy and Chicago are squabbling for the 7th and 8th seeds in the 8-team playoff, with the Fever ahead on tiebreaker as of today. The Sparks, Mystics and Wings are all fading from competition, so in a 12-team league, only Atlanta looks like it could spoil either team's postseason bid — and barring an out-and-out collapse, at least one of the Fever and Sky are dancing (or whatever the cutesy "postseason participation" term becomes for the pros). I think Indiana's recent big wins and softer back-half schedule make it more likely to finish ahead of Chicago — possibly even challenge for .500 — but it's hardly a sure thing and it would be a major point in Reese's favor if Indiana stumbles.
C) How either of them play. This may seem counterintuitive — to the point of being an indictment of the award — but I've got it down here just because both players have already established themselves as elite at what they do, and in the same way as we saw them do it in college. In other words, they're putting up numbers and none of it looks unsustainable. Maybe one of them tires out down the stretch, but the Olympic/All-Star break coming in a week or so should have both of them primed to build on their roles instead.
So for that reason, I've come around on the idea of a co-ROY. The Clarkies and Barbies would hate the idea, but I don't think Clark and Reese themselves will push much of the negativity around that. As a matter of fact, for as much as the idea of their "rivalry" gets media attention, the real hay to be made is Indiana-Chicago, much in the same way that Lakers-Celtics fed off Magic-Bird but ultimately became (again) more about the franchises themselves. We're lucky enough to see Clark and Reese as teammates on the WNBA All-Star Team as they face Team USA, and they might just mess around and dominate the thing together. And wouldn't that be a fun development in the narrative of these two as they magnify the league's popularity in the coming years.
3. One last thought train on this one, and those of you who don't care for pro wrestling can go ahead and skip to the next post in the thread now: Clark and Reese is the WNBA's John Cena vs. CM Punk.
Two stars who go about their business in very different ways:
Clark is the squeaky-clean babyface with legions of kids and casual fans in their corner, a fanbase that generates paradigm-altering amounts of money and attention. The hardcore fans are already tired of hearing about her, but in the absence of anything she's doing wrong — Clark and Cena are among the most generous with their time away from the work/ring as you'll ever find — the amount of effort the league spends in catering to that newer fanbase becomes the point of contention instead. Yes, I'm comparing WNBA lifers to the neckbeards who look down on fans who don't know who the Von Erichs or Hiroshi Tanahashi are (hey, I did tell you this one's for the wrestling fans).
Reese, meanwhile, is the tireless, caustic upstart who rails against the powers that be and uses that as motivation to succeed, and uses that to generate powerful emotional investment from a fanbase that's more than ready to point out inequities (both real and perceived). Their unconventional game leads the "old guard" to doubt them, probably too much — Reese should never have gone 7th in the draft, even with a class that loaded — and there's just no point in trying to talk anyone out of it.
And ultimately, their contrasts make them rivals, absolutely — but they also make them indispensable to each other, and their sport will be better off for how much attention both bring to the table. I'm not asking anyone to like both; bringing it back to unscripted sports, it's like asking people in the '80s to like the Lakers and Celtics. But as someone who's wanted a brighter light on women's ball for a long time now, it's healthy for the sport to see two burgeoning stars with their own approaches to greatness succeeding so early. THAT grows the game more than any one player, even Clark, can do by themselves.
[Part 2 coming in the next couple minutes... bumping up against the 10,000 character limit already. - AJ]
