Caitlin Clark says best is yet to come after dazzling WNBA rookie year
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Caitlin Clark (right) assured fans that bigger things are on the way.
PHOTO: AFP
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NEW YORK – Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark said she has only scratched the surface of what she can accomplish after her record-breaking rookie season ended in the first round of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) play-offs on Sept 25.
The Rookie of the Year led the Fever to their first post-season appearance since 2016, and while they exited the play-offs with an 87-81 defeat by the Connecticut Sun on the road, Clark assured fans that bigger things are on the way.
Although her season is over after the 2-0 series defeat, the Sun go on to face the Minnesota Lynx in the play-off semi-finals, with Game 1 set for Sept 29.
“I feel like I had a solid year but for me the fun part is I feel like I’m just scratching the surface,” she said. “I feel like I can continue to get a lot better.”
Clark, 22, took some time to get going. But once she gelled with her teammates, including two-time All-Star Kelsey Mitchell and 2023 Rookie of the Year Aliyah Boston, she put up extraordinary numbers in her debut year.
She broke the single-season assists record (337), smashed the rookie scoring record with 769 points and in July became the first WNBA rookie to score a triple-double.
“We came together and had a lot of fun playing with one another,” said Clark. “That’s sometimes the worst part of it – it’s like you feel like you’re playing your best basketball and then it has to end.”
It was exactly the kind of run that the WNBA had hoped for, as they worked to capitalise on the “Clark effect” that saw television ratings shattered in the wake of her record-breaking final collegiate season with the University of Iowa.
The 1.83m sharpshooter became appointment viewing in college thanks to her dazzling three-pointers and she had her best weapon on display in the WNBA, recording the most, with 122 of them.
Viewership of WNBA games on Ion more than doubled from 2023, the network said. Seven games had more than 1 million viewers – all of them Fever games.
The Fever’s final regular-season game on Sept 19 brought in a WNBA record crowd of 20,711 to Capital One Arena, where the home team Washington Mystics won 92-91.
Clark had scarcely a week between her final college game and the WNBA Draft, where a television audience of 2.45 million, a record for the event, tuned in to watch her go first overall.
While some WNBA players head overseas in the off-season to supplement their income, Clark, who has already signed a host of lucrative endorsement deals, appears unlikely to follow suit.
“I feel like basketball has really consumed my life for a year,” she said. “I feel like taking some time to myself and really enjoying that and reflecting back and, you know, it was special.” REUTERS
