Let’s Face a Brutal Reality: Caitlyn Clark IS the WNBA.

I want to acknowledge real quick that this article is going to sound insanely harsh on a particular player… I feel like I need to preface anything in this conversation by saying I will be looking at on-court impact mostly, and then also touching on media impact, which is also a massive part of this “WNBA Revolution” we are seeing currently. But it’s also where this other player I am talking about thrives, in my eyes. Her impact off the court for what is happening in the WNBA has been extraordinary!

I think it’s time we talk about the WNBA for a second. Since the beginning of last season, there has been a monumental shift within the league in terms of the revenue it is bringing in, the media attention it has garnered, and the number of fans becoming increasingly interested in the games. Those all seem like amazing accomplishments (and in the end, they are), but the WNBA has a problem in that its league currently revolves around one player.

If you have never watched Caitlin Clark play basketball, you need to. She is a special talent on the court and a fantastic ambassador for the game off the court. For an actual NBA comparison, she reminds me of Stephen Curry and Kawhi Leonard combined in a sense. She plays like Steph—a guard who can pull up from anywhere beyond half court and get you a basket, with defenses seeming to gravitate towards her more than anyone else on the team, as she constantly draws double teams to get her teammates open—but she almost has the media presence of Kawhi. She does the interviews that she needs to, and then goes about her business.

With what the NBA is nowadays, I would find it hard to believe you haven’t heard Caitlin’s name thrown around at least once. She is what we expect to see out of WNBA players when we turn on one of their games—granted, knowing what she is doing is on another level than anyone we have seen in a long time within the league. That’s where the issue is, though.

You know Caitlin Clark, and you probably know Angel Reese and a few other players for what they have been able to generate from their media. But besides that... that’s kind of it. When I think of Angel Reese, I think of an Andre Drummond comparison—a big who can grab a rebound better than anyone in the league. I don’t think of her as a scorer, for a couple of reasons. In reality, if you want to look at it objectively, in the WNBA, 10 points a game is not bad by any means… then you get to her field goal percentage… 31%. I’ll write that again in case you’re thinking you’re seeing it wrong: THIRTY-ONE PERCENT FROM THE FLOOR IN HER SECOND SEASON. For her career, she shoots THIRTY-EIGHT PERCENT (38%) from the floor. With the knowledge that most of the shots she is taking are layups and within 10 feet, and that she has a height advantage over a lot of the league… that’s not something to be bragging about.

For reference, Brittney Griner—who is probably one of the best bigs in the league’s history—doesn’t have that much “crazier” stats than Reese… but for her career, she shoots 18% better from the floor than Reese, and that’s a big difference.

I’m going to get comments on this post—or in my email—saying this is a racially biased post (article? Whatever you want to call this). I promise you it’s not. I’m bringing this up right now for a couple of reasons. The first being that Caitlin Clark is hurt right now with a hamstring strain, and tickets for the game between the Chicago Sky (Reese’s team) and Indiana Fever (Clark’s team) plummeted in price. At last check, I had seen tickets go down more than 70%, from over $110 to around $25 since Clark was announced out of the game.

The Sky were expecting the game to sell so well that they moved it from the originally scheduled location—the 9,000-seat Wintrust Arena—to the biggest NBA arena in the country, the United Center. While the Sky and Fever drew one of the biggest TV ratings for the WNBA ever in their opening day game, with 3.7 million people watching, that was with Clark on the court. Fans who were going to travel to Indiana started canceling trips once they realized Clark would not be playing because, “She’s the biggest draw, and that’s who the girls want to see,” (talking about his daughters).

This isn’t just a problem for the Sky vs. Fever game either. When the Fever played the Mystics last week, prices for the game dropped 47% once it was announced Clark was not playing (both price drops and the fan quote per Athlon Sports). The fans are showing you that players like Angel Reese are not going to bring this league to where it wants to go.

One of the reasons people love this version of the NBA is that it is a fast and offensive-paced game. While the WNBA is slowly starting to inch in that direction because of Clark, fans are showing that they are turned off by the idea of an inefficient big slowing down the pace of the game. According to NBAstats.com, the average NBA field goal percentage is 47%. That’s for an average player. Reese is a star, and she’s shooting 16% lower than that (granted, two different games).

If you want to compare her to some of the bigger names in terms of big men in the NBA, it’s a tough ask too. The most direct comparison I can think of would be Victor Wembanyama, who shot 47% last year for San Antonio. Joel Embiid only shot 44% in 2024 (in 19 games), but shot 49% that year overall, and better than 50% the two years before that. Giannis Antetokounmpo has shot over 60% the last two seasons.

I love what Angel Reese has done for this league in the sense that she has brought eyes to the fact that these are some of the most athletically gifted women on the planet. I have all the respect in the world for the amount of attention she has brought to this league, and for the knowledge that she is going to be one of this league’s biggest ambassadors shortly. She has a huge voice in this league, and it is ignorant of anyone to say that her using that voice has hurt the league or turned people away from it.

Being the media voice and the talking head for the WNBA is one of the things she is best at, and she needs to continue doing that as best as she can. Strictly in terms of on-court ability though, she needs to understand that there are differences between being a very good player and having the potential to be the best in the league’s history—and that’s the gap between her and Caitlin right now. All the numbers coming out since Clark’s injuries in terms of ticket prices and fan interest are backing that up.