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Caitlin Clark’s early play in for the Indiana Fever in the WNBA will serve as her tryout for a spot on the U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team.
The women’s roster for the Paris Games won’t be determined before June 1. Unable to attend the U.S. training camp earlier this month, Clark will have the start of her WNBA career to show the U.S. women’s basketball selection committee whether she deserves a spot on the team.
Selection committee chair Jennifer Rizzotti said she’ll be watching.
“You always want to introduce new players into the pool whether it’s for now or the future,” Rizzotti told The Associated Press. “We stick to our principles of talent, obviously, positional fit, loyalty and experience. It’s got to be a combination of an entire body of work. It’s still not going to be fair to some people.”
Clark, the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft, was invited to attend the U.S. training camp in Cleveland, but it was held during the Final Four when she was still competing for a national championship with the University of Iowa. Attending the camp wasn’t mandatory to make the team, but it certainly would have helped the NCAA Division I all-time scoring leader show the selection committee she could hold her own against some of the best players in the world. The camp in Cleveland was the last one the U.S. had before announcing its roster.
The team will get together in Phoenix for a few days in July right before the Olympics, including playing an exhibition All-Star game against WNBA players.
The U.S men’s basketball Olympic roster was announced last week.
The American women, who are trying for an eighth consecutive Olympic gold medal, have a talented group of guards in the pool. The list includes five-time Olympian Diana Taurasi as well as Chelsea Gray, Ariel Atkins and Jewell Loyd, who all played on the Tokyo Games team in 2021. Kelsey Plum, who owns an Olympic gold medal in 3×3, and Sabrina Ionescu are also in the pool.
“Thinking about Diana and Chelsea Gray and when their careers are done, you want to make sure you’re in a position with these upcoming guards with Sabrina, Kelsey and Caitlin that you feel good that our future is set,” Rizzotti said during 3×3 training camp last weekend.
Rizzotti will get a first-hand look at Clark when the No. 1 pick in the draft opens her WNBA career at the Connecticut Sun on May 14. Rizzotti is the president of the Sun.
If Clark makes the team, she wouldn’t be the first WNBA rookie to be on an Olympic squad. Breanna Stewart was the last one to do it, making the team in 2016. The difference was that Stewart had been part of the national team since she was a sophomore in college, playing on the 2014 World Cup squad.
While Clark has no senior national team experience, she has played on junior USA teams. She won gold medals at the 2019 and 2021 FIBA U19 World Cups and the 2017 FIBA U16 Americas Championship.
There were reports Clark potentially could’ve been part of the 3×3 team. but Clark has said her focus is playing on the 5-on-5 team.
“It’s where I want to be,” Clark told the AP last week. “Three-on-three is really cool, I’ve just never done it. But 5-on-5 is the goal and the dream. To play with the best in the world and against the best in the world, you can’t script it better than that.”
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From a purely selfish perspective, I hope she is not selected for the team. Caitlin just finished playing a 35+ game college schedule, and will now start a 40-game WNBA season within the next couple of weeks. The three-week break for the Olympics might be better for her, rather than traveling to France, playing another half dozen games, then returning to the US for the rest of the WNBA season.