Caitlin Clark wins WNBA Rookie of Year: ‘Is she the best guard in the WNBA right now?’

UNCASVILLE, Conn. — Caitlin Clark has always wanted to dominate.

Her desire to be the best dates back to when she was a kid — and it wasn’t even sports-related. It came in a desire to always get the best candy.

In Des Moines, Iowa, Clark’s hometown, trick-or-treating comes with a caveat: kids need to tell a joke in order to get the candy. When she was trick-or-treating with her friends every year, she would always run to the house first, ring the doorbell and tell her joke first.

“I was in a full sweat at trick-or-treat,” Clark said to laughs ahead of a game in September. “Like, I came home, and I had to go straight to the shower before I counted my candy because all that mattered is that I got first. I got first every year. The amount of candy I had, I was the first at the door, I had the best costume, I had the best joke. I just dominated trick-or-treat.”

In Clark’s case, it was more than the sign of an overeager kid, wanting to get in front of her friends to get first pick. It was a sign of what she would become, how she would approach competition and sports as she grew up.

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The debate is over: Fever star Caitlin Clark wins WNBA Rookie of the Year

Cultivated from a young age, Clark just had that innate desire to be the best at everything — in school, against her brothers, at soccer (her side sport), and at basketball.

It’s the same mindset multiple WNBA greats have.

“There’s certain people who just love to compete and not only want to win at everything they do, but want to be the best and want to dominate,” said Rebecca Lobo, a longtime ESPN broadcaster and former WNBA player. “And they tend to be the best at stuff you know, like Diana Taurasi is that way. Sue Bird was that way. Maya Moore, they’re just incredibly innate competitors, who are born that way.”

First, it came at the college level; she became a back-to-back National Player of the Year, NCAA men’s and women’s basketball all-time scoring leader, and led her Iowa Hawkeyes to the national championship game for two straight seasons. Before Clark stepped on the Iowa campus, the Hawkeyes had only been to the Final Four once (in 1993).

Now, even in her first season in the WNBA, she’s started to take over. Leading the league in assists ( a single-season league record), breaking the rookie scoring record, and recording the first rookie triple-double (she did it twice), all on the way to becoming the WNBA Rookie of the Year, per a report from the Athletic’s Shams Charania.

Our story: IndyStar is the authority on Caitlin Clark and Fever’s WNBA ascent

Caitlin Clark transition to WNBA

Lobo, who played in the WNBA from 1997-2003, knew early on Clark was going to be different. She posted on X in February, cementing a bold prediction: if Caitlin Clark declares for the WNBA draft and goes to the Indiana Fever, she will put up MVP-caliber numbers in her first season.

Of course, there was skepticism from others: the WNBA had a different talent level than college, and Clark would already be coming off a grueling senior season at Iowa.

But what made Lobo so confident?

“What I saw was a player who had deep range, who really had great vision, and was going to be playing with better players,” Lobo said. “She had great college teammates at Iowa, but, of course, it’s a different level and at the time, so much attention was being given to, you know, ‘The defenders are so much better in the W.’ And yes, of course, that is true. But her team was also going to be better, and her skill set, to me, was going to translate.”

Clark had made herself known in the college game for her long-range 3-pointers (frequently from the logo), and elite passes to her teammates. She even set the new NCAA scoring record with an on-brand, 35-footer.

Those things were going to translate no matter what league she was playing in.

There was still going to be a transition period, obviously, and especially with the schedule the Fever had to start the season: 11 games in 20 days, seven of them on the road.

Clark — and the Fever as a whole — were thrown into the fire of the WNBA, as their first four games were against two WNBA finals contenders in the Connecticut Sun and New York Liberty.

On top of that, Clark was quickly the most-guarded rookie, most guarded player Lobo has ever seen.

Teams were doing it to rattle her, and in some ways, it worked. She turned the ball over 10 times in the season-opener against the Sun, setting a league record for most turnovers in a debut game. But she scored 20 points in that game, too.

“I can’t overstate this: I have never seen a rookie or any player, frankly, defended the way she was defended in the first three weeks of the season,” Lobo said. “I have never seen a player get picked up full-court when they don’t have the basketball in their hands. I’ve never seen a player 35 feet from the basket, being face-guarded when the ball is in the opposite corner of the court.”

The Fever started 2-9 in that grueling 11-game stretch. Then, after practice, the Olympic break, and team bonding, Indiana went 18-11 over the rest of the season to finish 20-20 — the Fever’s most wins since 2015.

A playoff berth, too, for the first time since Fever legend Tamika Catchings retired in 2016. She finished the regular season averaging 19.2 points (seventh in the league), 8.4 assists (first) and 5.7 rebounds.

Caitlin Clark produces MVP-caliber season

As Lobo predicted, Clark found herself in not only Rookie of the Year, but in MVP conversations in her first season in the league. (She finished fourth in MVP voting.)

“It’s definitely cool,” Clark said of being in MVP conversations on Sept. 19. “I think especially where I started the year and then was able to figure it out as we go… it feels night and day from where I started. I’m proud of myself in that regard, and I’ve learned a lot.”

How couldn’t she be an MVP candidate? She was doing something entirely unique to the league: an elite passer and an elite scorer, at the same time. Most of the time, players were one or the other — at least within the same season.

In 2024, Clark became the first player to lead the league in assists and be top-10 in scoring in the same season. As a rookie, she was the player circled, bolded and underlined on opposing teams’ scouting reports.

Still, she cleared the WNBA single-season assists record with multiple games to go. Previously set by Alyssa Thomas in 2023 with 316, Clark got her 317th against the Las Vegas Aces on Sept. 13, with two games still left in the season. Clark’s record now stands at 336.

At the same time, she has been a lights-out shooter. She finished the regular season seventh in the league in scoring, averaging 19.2 points per game and shooting 41.7% from the field and 34.4% from 3-point range.

“Caitlin is special,” Fever coach Christie Sides said. “Everybody knows that. She’s been special. She came into the best women’s basketball league in the world, she found her footing, continued to get better. She’s put herself in a position to be one of the best players in this league, and that’s incredible, especially for a rookie.”

The thing about the rest of the MVP candidates, too, is that they’re all forwards. Clark is the only guard to finish within the top five.

“She’s had a dominant season,” Lobo said. “… And, you know, what people should be talking about, ‘Is she the best guard in the WNBA right now?’ I think that’s the conversation you have, and she’s certainly up there.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Caitlin Clark wins 2024 WNBA Rookie of the Year: How Fever star did it