Everything WNBA

[DanH]

What stuff? and what's the difference with the way she's playing now and early in the season? she's the same exact player. As I mentioned a half dozen times, there is no race. There was never a race. The whole Angel Reese thing was all clickbait and a lot of you fell for it.

She had 19 assists to 6 turnovers. She averaged before this game 7.8 assists and 5.6 turnovers. That's the same player to you?

I do think the race should clarify more soon, as I do think Clark has been trending in the right direction of late, even this latest game aside, and some level of consistency will make her case much better. And at the same time, the Sky just traded away one of their better players in a tanking move, so Reese may struggle more without enough creation/shooting around her to be able to keep contributing so well as an off ball player.

And frankly even without that, the result is in Clark's hands - if she keeps improving her play like she has been, it's her award to lose. Key is driving her results like she has been lately so her early season play isn't as big a factor. She's been a completely different player over the past 9 games (double digit assists in 7 of the 9 games without an increase in turnovers, versus not a single double digit assist game before that). She's gone from 6.7 assists per 36 prior to the last 9 games to 11.1 assists per 36 in the last 9 games. That's an incredible improvement - if not wholly unexpected from a player of her calibre. But she's finally getting results that align with the talent level - and since awards are won on results, yes, she is finally making the case that this is her award.

[DanH]

Yep. They are using her high turnovers like it's this awful thing but all the other highest TO in a season are the best WNBA players ever who had amazing seasons. It's the same in the NBA.

What was missing was the "amazing season" part. Over the last while she's been correcting that part - but it was definitely missing for the early part of the season when the race looked much closer.

[Primer]

What was missing was the "amazing season" part. Over the last while she's been correcting that part - but it was definitely missing for the early part of the season when the race looked much closer.

17.1 pts, 8.2 ast, 5.8 reb

Yeah that's not an amazing season you got me.

[DanH]

17.1 pts, 8.2 ast, 5.8 reb

Yeah that's not an amazing season you got me.

In the context of this season, before the recent run of improved play she went on? Here are some statlines from the best players in the league along with Clark prior to the 9 games of improvement I'd been waiting on.

A'ja: 28 points, 12 rebounds and 3 assists
Arike: 24, 5 and 5
Kahleah: 23, 4 and 2
Collier: 21, 10 and 4
Stew: 20, 9 and 4
Griner: 20, 7 and 2
Ionescu: 19, 4 and 6
Hamby: 18, 11 and 4
Thomas: 12, 9 and 8
Skylar: 15, 3 and 6
Clark: 16, 5 and 6
Reese: 12, 11 and 2

She's not up there with the best players in that sample. She's doing well. But not comparable to the top players in the league (all of whom have dramatically fewer turnovers than Clark - by like 2 per game).

Heck, this "historically the best players have a lot of turnovers" argument is hilarious. The league leaders in turnovers the past few years are not even close to Clark:

2024: Clark 5.6
2023: Thomas 3.4
2022: Howard: 3.2
2021: Howard: 3.8
2020: Sabrina: 4.3
2019: Sims 3.3
2018: Courtney 3.5
2017: Thomas 3.0

And it goes on.

Of late she is so much more in the discussion. Her assist to turnover ratio hasn't been the absolute disaster (completely unheard of, pretending it's normal is nuts) it was early on - it's been in line with what you usually see from those impressive players near the top of the league. Everyone was talking in late June like she was already playing like this and she simply wasn't. Now she is, and finally reality is starting to align with the hype - and so now it makes perfect sense to me to talk about how her performance is separating her from the pack, because, you know, it actually is.

[The Great One]

She had 19 assists to 6 turnovers. She averaged before this game 7.8 assists and 5.6 turnovers. That's the same player to you?

I do think the race should clarify more soon, as I do think Clark has been trending in the right direction of late, even this latest game aside, and some level of consistency will make her case much better. And at the same time, the Sky just traded away one of their better players in a tanking move, so Reese may struggle more without enough creation/shooting around her to be able to keep contributing so well as an off ball player.

And frankly even without that, the result is in Clark's hands - if she keeps improving her play like she has been, it's her award to lose. Key is driving her results like she has been lately so her early season play isn't as big a factor. She's been a completely different player over the past 9 games (double digit assists in 7 of the 9 games without an increase in turnovers, versus not a single double digit assist game before that). She's gone from 6.7 assists per 36 prior to the last 9 games to 11.1 assists per 36 in the last 9 games. That's an incredible improvement - if not wholly unexpected from a player of her calibre. But she's finally getting results that align with the talent level - and since awards are won on results, yes, she is finally making the case that this is her award.

6 turnovers you say? It looks bad if you look at it that way. I watched the game last night and she was phenomenal. It was the best game of the reg season. 3 of her turnovers happened in the final minute of the game. They were down 4 with a minute left and she just forced things.

[DanH]

6 turnovers you say? It looks bad if you look at it that way. I watched the game last night and she was phenomenal. It was the best game of the reg season. 3 of her turnovers happened in the final minute of the game. They were down 4 with a minute left and she just forced things.

I wasn't even presenting the 6 turnovers as a bad thing. In a game where you are creating 19 assists worth of offence, it really isn't. Some of them coming late is even more impressive.

I was commenting on how impressive this game, and her recent stretch of games, have been compared to the earlier portion of the season where the turnovers are a nightly inevitability and the offence creation simply wasn't there to justify them.

[The Great One]

Another dumb Caitlin Clark narrative this season was when she didn't get pick to play for USA, the narratives were, "the guards that were picked over her were all better than her" Who would you take out?

Maybe take them all out? as shes better than all of them.

[Primer]

In the context of this season, before the recent run of improved play she went on? Here are some statlines from the best players in the league along with Clark prior to the 9 games of improvement I'd been waiting on.

A'ja: 28 points, 12 rebounds and 3 assists
Arike: 24, 5 and 5
Kahleah: 23, 4 and 2
Collier: 21, 10 and 4
Stew: 20, 9 and 4
Griner: 20, 7 and 2
Ionescu: 19, 4 and 6
Hamby: 18, 11 and 4
Thomas: 12, 9 and 8
Skylar: 15, 3 and 6
Clark: 16, 5 and 6
Reese: 12, 11 and 2

She's not up there with the best players in that sample. She's doing well. But not comparable to the top players in the league (all of whom have dramatically fewer turnovers than Clark - by like 2 per game).

Heck, this "historically the best players have a lot of turnovers" argument is hilarious. The league leaders in turnovers the past few years are not even close to Clark:

2024: Clark 5.6
2023: Thomas 3.4
2022: Howard: 3.2
2021: Howard: 3.8
2020: Sabrina: 4.3
2019: Sims 3.3
2018: Courtney 3.5
2017: Thomas 3.0

And it goes on.

Of late she is so much more in the discussion. Her assist to turnover ratio hasn't been the absolute disaster (completely unheard of, pretending it's normal is nuts) it was early on - it's been in line with what you usually see from those impressive players near the top of the league. Everyone was talking in late June like she was already playing like this and she simply wasn't. Now she is, and finally reality is starting to align with the hype - and so now it makes perfect sense to me to talk about how her performance is separating her from the pack, because, you know, it actually is.

Not sure why we would remove her recent 9 games since that is 35% of the games she's played. She's had an amazing season. One of the best seasons of a WNBA rookie ever.

[DanH]

Not sure why we would remove her recent 9 games since that is 35% of the games she's played. She's had an amazing season. One of the best seasons of a WNBA rookie ever.

Did... you not read the discussion up above? People who were upset with her high turnovers were upset because up until the last 9 games or so her assist totals did not justify the high turnover rate.

Over the last 9 games she has assist numbers much more in line with that level of turnovers - she's still setting records for turnovers, but now her assists are setting records too. That's the whole point.

She's definitely had an amazing season for a rookie. As has Reese, of course. That's why they've both been in the discussion. But Clark is moving towards having an amazing season for a WNBA player, full stop, and that would effectively end the discussion so long as she keeps up her recent play instead of the early season stuff that made the discussion worth having.

[golden]

Another dumb Caitlin Clark narrative this season was when she didn't get pick to play for USA, the narratives were, "the guards that were picked over her were all better than her" Who would you take out?

Maybe take them all out? as shes better than all of them.

I thought WNBA'ers were supposed to be good at shooting 3s?

[DanH]

Funny that they just highlight a bunch of custom rows (and leave off rows that would make Clark look bad). Love the engagement farming. Works especially well on casual fans who are just around to ride the Clark hype train (unsurprising coming from that particular twitter user, given their username).

Let's simplify things. Individual ORTG on basketball-ref simplifies scoring, assists, offensive rebounding, turnovers, essentially all things offence into a single number.

Plum 106 ORTG
Loyd 103 ORTG
Taurasi 106 ORTG
Gray 92 ORTG
Clark 99 ORTG

Solid argument for her over Gray, otherwise not so much. Let alone being so lopsided its worth ridicule. Gray is of course working her way back from a bad injury, hence the bad numbers.

And that's just on offence. Basically no one argues to put a rookie on a team for defensive purposes.

[The Great One]

Dan, why are you still arguing? Caitlin Clark is now 3rd on the MVP ladder. I repeat, she now has the 3rd best odds to win regular season MVP.

You have to know when to give up man. You lost this one. Angel Reese as I always say was never in this race.

[DanH]

Why would I have any issue with that? Her recent play has actually been great. If she'd been playing like this all season there would never have been a discussion. And if she keeps it up, there won't be.

[Primer]

Why would I have any issue with that? Her recent play has actually been great. If she'd been playing like this all season there would never have been a discussion. And if she keeps it up, there won't be.

Haha, he still won't concede the ROY race to Caitlin.

[DanH]

Haha, he still won't concede the ROY race to Caitlin.

OK, so Clark averages 1 PPG the rest of the season, she should win ROY?

Silly. What on earth could possibly be wrong with saying that she still needs to keep playing well to win the award? Saying basically anything else is just exposing a bias, no?

If your point is of course she will keep playing like this, then you should have no issue with the condition!