One WNBA rookie has the basketball talent, marketing ability and pure flair to deserve a spot on the U.S. Women’s Olympic Basketball Team in 2024.
And that’s not Caitlin Clark.
Clark’s longtime rival, Angel Reese, didn’t cause the same uproar as Clark by being omitted from the official 12-man U.S. team, but is better suited as an alternate member of the five-on-five team in Paris.
The heated comments follow a wave of opinions following Clark’s perceived neglect at the Olympics, but the arguments in favor of Reese are based on the realities of roster construction and the state of the WNBA season, where Reese is competing with Clark for Rookie of the Year.
The first-year stars will go head-to-head for the second time in their WNBA careers on Sunday at noon ET when Clark and the Indiana Fever take on Reese and the Chicago Sky. Ahead of that matchup, here’s why Reese deserves at least as much consideration from USA Basketball as Clark.
Read more: Caitlin Clark could make 2024 Olympic team
Why Angel Reese is a better fit for Team USA than Caitlin Clark
I predicted Clark would be on the 12-man roster for the USA Basketball 5v5 team for the 2024 Olympics, and count me among the many who believed her widespread popularity, combined with obvious talent, made her too good to pass up.
Additionally, the U.S. team needs to bolster its youth ranks: This year will be the first time in Olympic history that the team has no players under the age of 25. Jackie Young and Sabrina Ionescu are the youngest, both at 26 years old.
But therein lies the problem for Clarke: A look at the roster shows Ionescu is the player who replaced Clarke in the starting lineup, and rightly so.
Ionescu is averaging 17.8 points, 5.5 assists and 4.4 rebounds per game while committing fewer turnovers (3.1) than Clark, while the 22-year-old is averaging 15.6 points, 6.0 assists, 4.9 rebounds and 5.5 turnovers per game. With Ionescu already on the team, Clark may not be the most useful replacement unless Ionescu herself is injured.
USA Basketball has a deep roster of guards, making up seven of its 12 players and missing Arike Ogunbowale, the second-leading scorer in the WNBA, and also has Arielle Atkins, Alisha Gray and Skylar Diggins-Smith, all with plenty of USA Team experience.
Read more: The biggest omissions from the 2024 USA Basketball Olympic Team roster
Several strong post players were also ignored, including Breonna Jones, Dearika Hamby and Aaliyah Boston. In fact, Jones is reportedly one of the top candidates to be a replacement, and the 6-foot-3 power forward from the Connecticut Suns could eliminate Reese, also a 6-foot-3 power forward, from the competition.
Still, Reese, more than Clarke, can fill a potential gap in a thinner position group, and like Clarke, the 22-year-old could give the team a youthful edge and build a foundation for the team’s future.
Reese is also hitting her stride at the right time, averaging 12.4 points per game, along with 9.6 rebounds and 1.9 steals, both of which rank fifth in the WNBA.
As of June 14, she has recorded double-digit rebounds in each of Chicago’s last five games, putting her in the thick of the Rookie of the Year race along with Clark (and Cameron Brink, another rookie post player who is already on his way to Paris as part of the 3-on-3 team).
Does Reece have what it takes to be an Olympian? You only need to ask Sky coach Theresa Weatherspoon for the answer.
“Does she have what it takes? She’s shown that,” Weatherspoon said. “She has what it takes. You’re right, she has what it takes.”
While Reese hasn’t garnered as much attention as Clark, she will certainly be a hot topic in the women’s basketball competition at the Summer Olympics. Reese and Clark both gained national prominence at the same time in the 2023 NCAA Tournament finals, when Reese and Louisiana State defeated Clark and Iowa to win the championship.
Reese may not have the same clout in the national sports world as Clark, but she has a much larger social media following than Clark, with more than double Clark’s 2.9 million followers across Instagram and TikTok, and she knows how to use them, posting frequently across multiple platforms.
Bender: Clarke’s Olympic ban a big mistake for USA Basketball
As selection committee chair Jen Rizzotti pointed out, the United States Basketball Association did not take marketing into consideration when creating its 12-player roster.
“It is not the prerogative of our committee to decide how many people will watch or how many people will cheer for the United States,” Rizzotti said.
But those factors were considered in the discussions to add Clark to the team, so Rees’ social media savvy should be considered a benefit, even if the committee didn’t acknowledge it.
Reece shares some of the same shortcomings as Clarke, particularly in the eyes of the selection committee: a lack of senior national team experience.
Reese and Clark are both in the midst of playing eight straight months of basketball. They both went straight from the NCAA postseason to the WNBA draft and then straight into training camp and the 2024 season. They’ll both need a few weeks of rest and recovery, which the Olympic break will allow them to do.
But when the USA Basketball Association considers replacing injured players on its Olympic team, Clark is one of the players expected to be at the top of the list, and Reese, at least for now, is not on the list.
That should change as the national team reflects on the current situation and prepares for the future.
