Will Caitlin Clark Become the Michael Jordan of the WNBA?

Caitlin Clark #22 of the Indiana Fever (Photo by Greg Fiume/Getty Images)

The WNBA Finals are underway, with the Minnesota Lynx playing against the New York Liberty. According to ESPN, ratings for this WNBA postseason are up 142% over last season. This surge comes despite the league's best and most high-profile player, Caitlin Clark, seeing her team, the Indiana Fever, eliminated in round one. Led by Clark, women's basketball isn't just having a moment; it's truly experiencing a movement.

Clark, the first overall pick out of Iowa in this year's WNBA Draft, is helping bring the game to never-before-seen heights in popularity. But before she went pro, Clark led the Iowa Hawkeyes to never-before-seen heights in their program. The Hawkeyes made the last two Final Fours, finishing national runner-up both times.
 

Last year's women's national title game, where Iowa fell to South Carolina 87-75, got better ratings than the men's game, providing a major watershed moment for the sport. Jan Jensen is in her first year leading the Hawkeyes program, after serving as an assistant for the past 20 years. She is the person who "discovered" the superstar point guard from Des Moines, as she led the recruiting of Clark.

At Big Ten Media Days, Jensen was asked about the Hawkeyes turning the page after "Cait," and her answer invoked the G.O.A.T.

"I think Michael Jordan is still part of North Carolina," Jensen said to RG. "They probably don't go through a recruiting process where someone in that recruiting world doesn't make some reference that Michael Jordan went there, and I'm really proud of that.

"In my opinion, it's there, it's obvious. We're going to get a lot of questions about that, but it's out of respect, out of gratitude, but this is the new chapter, and we're excited to be reading this chapter."

Clark has already seen her number retired at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, a 15,400-seat venue that sold out the upcoming season more than a month before it even started. Jensen described what it was like when she first realized that Clark was truly something special.

"I'll start with the physical – she was just doing things that nobody as a seventh, eighth grader was doing," Jensen said.

"And that was, yes, shooting behind the line, but it was in seeing passes before anybody on the court was seeing passes, and she would throw three-quarter length passes to 13-year-olds that weren't even in the vicinity. You could see right away that this kid's wired differently.

"Everybody asks, 'Did you think she would do everything she did? I don't think anybody could have envisioned that, but I knew she would be an All-American. There was no question about that. I will go to my grave telling everybody I was pretty confident about that, but when she got here, in that COVID year [2020], none of you could be there in person [to see her].

"And that was both good and bad. The good thing was you could refine her because she's passionate and can get too hot, but she also has an amazingly high IQ and was seeing things [no other player could]. So we could really work with that."

Clark is known for her three-point shot, but it's not that she's just accurate from behind the arc, it's that she launches those treys from way behind the arc. Clark is the queen of the "from the midcourt logo" three-ball.

Jensen continued: "But then, when people were watching the games on TV, and you'd see those long bombs, people were like, Wow, that's pretty impressive; that's when the world changed because then people were like, 'Whoa.'

"I mean, it takes about five seconds before it lands, and it's a splash, right? So her sophomore year, you could begin to really see the possibilities.

"There are only two people in the world doing what she did: her and Steph Curry. End of story. So it was just a matter of time before all of you people started to really grasp it. And then it was our job to manage it, and to get everybody around her good enough to take it to the next level. And thankfully, I think we did that."

Lucy Olsen, who transferred in from Villanova, will try to fill Clark's shoes as point guard this season.

"Caitlin Clark was amazing," Olsen said to the reporters at Media Day.

"She's playing so well, and her skill set is also very unique. Like, I'm not gonna shoot really deep threes. Her passing is incredible. I feel like my game is mid-range, and I'm just going to try to work my butt off in anything that I can do."

Hawkeyes forward Hannah Stuelke explained what makes Clark such a transcendent player, and personality.

Between Clark, Rickea Jackson, and Cameron Brink (both Los Angeles Sparks), Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso (both Chicago Sky), and Leonie Fiebich (New York Liberty), this is as strong a WNBA rookie class as we've ever seen. Many believe that this class could be to the league what the rookie/draft class of 40 years ago was to the NBA.  

That 1984 Draft class included Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley, and John Stockton.

We asked Jensen if she thought this analogy might be hyperbole.

"I don't think it's hyperbole for where we are, and where the WNBA has been," she responded. “If we polled this room, I don't think anybody could have told you two years ago – name three players in the WNBA, and who they played for. I'd say there'd be a pretty high percentage in the room that wouldn't have been able to do it.

"Now, everybody in this room could do that easily. So the hyperbole, I think we're there, because what's been talked about with the draft class, the attendance, I think it's a pretty fair statement to make, but we'll see where it goes."

She, of course, added at the end: "But my money has always been on the Clark kid.”