David Aldridge on Hoffman Show: USA Basketball picked players with better resumes than Caitlin Clark
The roster for the U.S women's basketball team for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris is out: Napheesa Collier, Kahleah Cooper, Chelsea Gray, Brittney Griner, Sabrina Ionescu, Jewell Loyd, Kelsey Plum, Breanna Stewart, Diana Taurasi, Alyssa Thomas, A'ja Wilson and Jackie Young earned roster spots. Caitlin Clark, who would have been the youngest player on the 12-women roster by four years, did not make the cut.
Of course, because of the attention Clark has brought to women's hoops the last two seasons, there was a great deal of controversy about her not making the cut from people who, quite frankly, had not paid much (if any at all) attention to the sport and WNBA.
When the argument about merit is over, a lot of people who are upset that Clark was excluded shift to make an argument about something other than skill on the court. The argument becomes about marketing and how picking Clark would be a chance to increase the eyeballs on women's basketball at the Summer Games.
"Some of the commentary is asinine and insane," Craig Hoffman said, "some if it, I think is actually pretty interesting. I think most of the marketing discussions is nuts."
David Aldridge, senior columnist at The Athletic, said he is "loathe to talk about it" because there is so much ridiculous talk on the matter.
Aldrdige says that many of the loudest vioces clogging up the conversation are "beyond the pale" as they argue "at the expense of all logic, all reason, all history, all everything."
"[The argument is] 'I wanna watch Caitlin Clark.' That's all it is," Aldridge told Hoffman. "And it has nothing to do with how USA Basketball has historically chosen their teams for the most part – and everything has an exception. But for the most part, USA Basketball has looked at people who have been part of the pipeline. They've been in the pipeline for multiple USA Basketball rotations and events. It doesn't just mean the Olympics. It means they played in World Cup, they played in under-19s, they played under-17s, they played 3-on-3. That's how they like to pick their teams. They want people who have been in the system.
"Now, Caitlin Clark has played some international competitions for USA Basketball. She was on the under-19 team [in 2021]. And played very well, I think she got the MVP of that tournament. But compared to the other players that they picked it's not as sterling a resume. It just isn't.
"And you can whine about it and yell about it and tell me I don't know what I'm talking about and tell Rebecca Lobo, who was only on the 1996 women's team that was the greatest single women's basketball team of all time, you can tell her she's stupid, too... because she had the audacity to say, 'What a minute. There's some nuance here that you may not be thinking about. There's some context here to how USA Basketball picks its team.'"
With the merit side of the conversation over, Aldridge shifts to the marketing debate which he calls "a preposterous argument, it's just simply preposterous."
"And it's not made in good faith," he said. "[Clark] is not going to play a lot, I'm sorry, she's not. And so, you're gonna be even angrier that she's not playing. Which is going to create another problem for USA Basketball. The idea that this is the last Olympics that we're ever going to have!!! Is just... what?
"The next [Summer] Olympic games are going to be in Los Angeles in 2028. What does that mean? That means that every marquee event that NBC wants to have will be live and in primetime. Every single one. Now, usually, that's track and field, it's swinning, it's gymnastics.... they're gonna be in primetime. All of them. Including women's basketball!"
Aldridge added that Clark is likely to play on just about every other Olympic team from here on, just not this one, "because she's not one of the 12 best U.S. basketball players. She's just isn't, I'm sorry. She's not."
The thing that really annoys and angers Aldridge is the people who say, "'Well this is just the dumbest thing that USA Basketball could do because this is the chance to put women's basketball on the map.' You know how you could put women's basketball on the map? Watch a WNBA game. You know how you could put women's basketball on the map? Go to a WNBA game. You know how you could put women's basketball on the map? Go to more college games and support college teams. You know how you could put women's basketball on the map? Buy women's merchandise. You know how you could put women's basketball on the map? Cover women's basketball! That's how you could do that. You could do all of it immediately by patronizing women's basketball products, services and teams. You could do it now!
"But you say, 'If Caitlin Clark's not on the team, I won't do any of those things.' Well, then you don't really care about women's basketball. And that's what annoys me is that you are using her for your own really not good agenda, I'll just leave it at that. You don't really care about women's basketball and you're clocking this in 'I care about women's basketball, I wanna grow the game.' OK, do all of the stuff I just said, that's how you can support women's basketball, that's how you can help grow women's basketball. Make the TV ratings so high that they can break all kinds of records. That's how you can support women's basketball.
"It can not just be, 'If Caitlin Clark doesn't, then I won't.' Because you're just supporting one person. And that does not help the game grow, it creates the very division that is fomenting all of this. That again, Caitlin Clark has not asked you to do. She doesn't want any of this. She wants to play basketball.
"Let her play and get better. She will get better, she's too good not to. She will be a great player in the WNBA very soon. It just isn't gonna be tonight. So let her grow. Let her take her lumps like everybody who has ever played an organized sport has to do when they play at a higher level... she's not asking for special treatment, stop providing it for her and stop demanding it for her!"
That conversation can be heard in its entirety on the audio player above! Plus, it all starts with Aldridge giving his biggest takeaways from the first two games of the NBA Finals, whether the Celtics have the best defensive backcourt ever, and what the Mavericks need to do to turn the series around. And, of course, Dan Hurley turning down the Los Angeles Lakers head coaching job offer and if JJ Redick is the best coaching candidate left for the Lakers
