Caitlin Clark has been called the greatest of all time (by Iowa fans), overrated (by most other Big Ten fans), “an alien,” (by Diana Taurasi), a generational talent (by Dawn Staley and Kim Mulkey) and just about every other superlative you can imagine.
But what do any of those descriptors mean when it comes to how her game will translate to the WNBA?
Clark, who scored 30 points in her final college game, an 87-75 loss to South Carolina in the national championship, is expected to be taken No. 1 by the Indiana Fever next Monday at the 2024 WNBA draft in Brooklyn.
“Can she still change her mind? Is that possible?” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder quipped Saturday, as the Hawkeyes prepared to take on the top-seeded Gamecocks. “I would like that very much.”
Bluder was joking about Clark’s intentions after the 2023-24 Iowa season. In February, Clark declared for the draft, forgoing her COVID year.
FOLLOW THE MADNESS: NCAA basketball bracket, scores, schedules, teams and more.
So despite Bluder’s dreams, this is what we know: Clark’s going pro and she’s going to the Fever. In Indianapolis, Clark will team up with 2023 Rookie of the Year Aaliyah Boston.
But what can basketball fans reasonably expect from Clark in her first professional season?
Court presence, passing, logo 3s all translate
First, the positives: Clark has been the best distributor in college basketball the last few years, a true pass-first point guard gifted with tremendous court vision (don’t be fooled by how much Clark scored in college — she is always looking to get her teammates the ball). She’s especially lethal as a passer in the open floor, and will be at her best surrounded by athletes who get up the court like Boston, guard Kelsey Mitchell and forward NaLyssa Smith.
And then, of course, there’s the scoring. Clark is a logo-launching legend, and her range will translate immediately to the league.
Asked how she might change the pro game, NBA All-Star Stephen Curry’s answer was simple.
“I’m trying to think of someone she’s like — maybe like a Diana Taurasi but with even more playmaking ability,” Curry said. “She can change the geometry of the game a little bit, with her ability to space the floor. And with how she can shoot, she’ll be able to do it right away.”
Six-time WNBA All-Star Maya Moore, who was Clark’s favorite player growing up, said Clark has “a motor that’s always going to make the game better.”
“I’ll be interested to see how she can continue to work within a pro team and system,” Moore said. “There’s a way you learn and adjust at the pro level that will be really fun for her as she gets to play with more world-class players. She enjoys bringing that fire and joy, too, and that’s contagious.”
No current WNBA player shoots from 25 feet and beyond regularly, though it’s not because they can’t.
As two-time WNBA All-Star Kelsey Plum said this weekend on the Bird and Taurasi show, she declines to shoot deep 3s because the best player in the world, A’ja Wilson, is usually waiting on the block.
Plum’s point: Plenty of WNBA guards could be bombing from the perimeter, but data shows the better choice is always to put the ball in the paint first.
‘You have to relearn the game’
Plum is often who people want to compare Clark to, because both were prolific college scorers (Clark passed Plum in mid-February to become the all-time leading scorer in women’s Division I history, finishing her career with 3,951 points to Plum’s 3,527).
Plum is the first to say that there’s an adjustment period in the WNBA; her game changed significantly in the pros as she worked to become a better passer and better defender.
Clark has a couple advantages over Plum and Mitchell, who also scored a lot in college (3,402): she’s bigger — Clark is 6-foot, Plum and Mitchell are 5-foot-8 — which will allow her to see over defenders. She doesn’t have the foot speed of someone like Mitchell, who can get to the rim at will, but Clark does have a surprisingly quick first step.
Still, scoring in the pros is nothing like in college.
“You have to be a lot more precise in the way that you take angles, change pace, and then your decision-making, there’s a lot smaller windows to (do that),” Plum said, explaining that every pro team has the personnel to execute a specific scouting report to take away everything a great offensive player likes to do. In college, most teams don’t have the rosters to do that.
“When I got to the league, it was almost like starting over,” Plum said. “You have to relearn the game.”
Defense, dribbling, mid-range game need work
The cons of Clark’s game — or the parts that will need the most work — are also pretty straightforward. She’s an inefficient dribbler, which will become glaringly obvious whenever she tries to get to the rim.
Clark hasn’t shown much of a midrange game in college either, but that speaks more to Iowa and Bluder’s philosophy of “3 or key.” It doesn’t mean she doesn’t have it, but it’ll be interesting to see how much of a go-to it is for her.
Regardless of what level she tries to score at — she has three options with the rim, the midrange and the 3-point line — Clark is going to go up against defenders who have seen every trick in the book. She won’t be able to provoke WNBA defenders like she did in college, often baiting them into fouling her as she’s driving.
“The defenders in the W are a lot older, they’re experienced and they’ve been defending superstars for years; they’ll know exactly what to do against her,” said former Iowa All-American Megan Gustafson, who had her own adjustment period when she went pro in 2019. “Rookies coming in from being collegiate superstars, they have a target on their back. The first thing vets want to do is make them look bad.”
Gustafson thinks once Clark puts on a few extra pounds of muscle — which will be challenging with her thin frame but possible because she’ll be fully focused on basketball — she’ll rise to every test presented.
And speaking of defenders, that’s hardly Clark’s calling card. Learning how to guard in the WNBA is likely to be her single biggest adjustment. At the same time, no one expects her to be a defensive stopper.
Iowa coach: Caitlin Clark ‘going to have to pay her rookie dues’
Bluder has her own worries, though they’re not related to Clark’s skillset.
“She’s going to be really tired after this season,” Bluder said. “That’s what concerns me the most. Rookies go into the WNBA, at their most exhausted time. That’s a little bit unfair for them.”
And that doesn’t even include the Olympic team, which Clark is still in contention to make as the Americans prepare for the Paris 2024 Games.
Still, Bluder has every confidence the two-time national player of the year will thrive at the next level, even if it takes awhile to get used to it.
“I just know that Caitlin has stepped up to every challenge that we’ve posed to her,” Bluder said. “I expect the same thing at the next level, although I know she’s going to have to pay her rookie dues.”
But perhaps the easiest answer to what kind of pro Clark will be is also the most obvious: She’ll be a popular pro.
And as marketing executives everywhere will tell you, that’s the best kind.