WNBA legend Lisa Leslie has lobbied for Chicago Sky star Angel Reese and Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark to win Rookie of the Year amid strong seasons from both players.
Beyond their performance on the court, Leslie cited the sky-high expectations Reese and Clark carried into their debut campaigns:
I don’t care what comparisons you make both @Reese10Angel and @CaitlinClark22 deserve the Rookie of the Year Award! The pressure and the weight of this season has forever changed the @WNBA and both rookies rose to the top and exceeded all our expectations! Take a bow ladies👏🏽👏🏽
— Lisa Leslie (@LisaLeslie) September 2, 2024
Others responded to Leslie and said a clear front-runner has emerged from what had been a tightly contested race:
You don’t deserve the ROY award b/c you “exceed all our expectations.”
You deserve the ROY award if you are the best rookie your rookie season.
Caitlin Clark deserves the ROY award
Angel Reese does not.
This isn’t complicated. https://t.co/gXiLJt4vYD
— Tommy Beer (@TommyBeer) September 2, 2024
Coming off her prolific collegiate run at Iowa, Clark was the heavy preseason favorite for Rookie of the Year. Her and the Fever’s sluggish start out of the gate opened the door for the rest of the field, though, and Reese fully capitalized.
The 6’3″ forward quickly became a double-double machine and set a WNBA record by reeling off 15 in a row.
The trouble for Reese is that her production started to tail off as Clark and Indiana began to ascend.
Since the start of July, Clark has averaged 22.6 points on 45.8 percent shooting along with 10.6 assists and 5.6 rebounds in 13 contests. The Fever have gone 9-4 during that span and sixth in the WNBA.
Reese, meanwhile, has averaged 13.3 points and 14.9 rebounds from the start of July, with Chicago losing ground in the playoff race. The Sky are in eighth at 11-21 and have dropped six games in a row. They’re in jeopardy of missing the postseason altogether with the ninth-place Atlanta Dream owning the same record.
You can poke holes in both players’ candidacies.
You can’t call attention to Clark’s playmaking without acknowledging she has set the single-season record for turnovers (181 and counting). She also deserves some of the blame for Indiana ranking 11th in defensive rating (106.8).
Reese might be a prodigious rebounder—she just set the single-season mark—but some of that is owed to her being a poor shooter. She’s hitting just 38.5 percent of her shots, which has presented her with a lot of opportunities to clean up her own messes. Across the NBA and WNBA, teams simply don’t value crashing the glass as much as they once did, either.
All things considered, Clark probably makes a stronger ROY case at this point thanks to how much she and the Fever are surging.
