On June 10th, the USA Basketball Selection Committee surprised fans with a notable omission from the Olympic roster. Despite all the eyes that Caitlin Clark has helped bring to the league, the WNBA No.1 draft pick will have to wait another four years for a chance at an Olympic Gold. A few weeks later, however, Dawn Staley, South Carolina head coach and a committee member, guaranteed that if the selection process had happened later, Clark would have made it. Interestingly, she has not stopped there. Instead, the 54-year-old once again made a statement that has left many thinking about her intentions.

The South Carolina Gamecocks head coach joined forces with Forbes to discuss the upsurge in the popularity of women’s sports. “I think sometimes we need a unifier. I think Caitlin Clark has done a tremendous job of being that person that people wanna see,” Staley told Forbes. Since Caitlin Clark has been a vital reason contributing to the growth of the WNBA, Staley gave her deserved praise.

The 2024 All-Star has always been a spectacle to watch, even before her arrival in the WNBA. In fact, her effect was quite visible during the Final Four and NCAA Tournament, which broke all-time records. But ever since joining the WNBA, the women’s league has shown “tremendous” growth.

In May alone, the WNBA recorded the highest attendance in over two decades with up to 400,000 people attending games. This season, all of the Indiana Fever’s games have been sold out, be it at home or in a different city. Even more remarkable, the WNBA All-Star game broke all records by averaging 3.4 million viewers on ABC.

For context, these ratings are 300% higher than those of last season’s All-Star game. And this is the basic reason why most people were agitated with Clark’s omission from Team USA. But the committee has a backup.

How Dawn Staley is contradicting her own statement?

According to Dawn Staley, a member of the selection committee, Clark’s performance has improved over the past few weeks. “As a committee member, you’re charged with putting together the best team of players, the best talent,” she told NBC a few days ago, emphasizing her responsibilities in selecting Team USA’s roster.

She added, “Caitlin is just a rookie in the WNBA, wasn’t playing bad, but wasn’t playing like she’s playing now. If we had to do it all over again, the way that she’s playing, she would be in really high consideration of making the team.” And she might be right. After the team announcement, Clark recorded the most assists in a single game (19) and a historic triple-double.

She’s even improved her averages to 8.2 assists and 17.1 points per game, leading all rookies in both categories. Additionally, she has made the third-most threes in the league this season, trailing the leader Kayla McBride by just 5 threes. But coming back to Staley’s comments, it seems she’s contradicting herself. On one hand, she says that Clark’s game wasn’t up to the mark at the time of selection.

Just a few days later, she praises her for helping the WNBA break viewership records. Since the USABW is often ignored by the media at the Olympics, Staley’s comments prove that Clark deserved to be in Paris. What do you think? Comment down below!

Stay tuned for more such updates and join us for the exciting pilot episode of the “Dual Threat Show” as our host BG12 sits down with Georgia Bulldogs star and SEC All-Freshman Team Selection Silas Demary Jr.