When a generational talent comes into the limelight, what makes them great? Is it their individual talent that propels them into stardom? Or is it a player of equal and/or almost equal talent challenging them to be better? The constant push and pull certainly helps. In the case of Caitlin Clark, fans perceive her archnemesis to be fellow WNBA star Angel Reese. But one analyst asks, what would the scenario be like if they played at different times?

Seerat Sohi on The Ringer’s WNBA Show talks to Van Lathan about this rivalry. While she respects it and even makes a Magic Johnson/ Larry Bird comparison, Sohi points out, “It is such a disservice to Angel Reese that every conversation around her is in comparison to Caitlin Clark. Because now you have this elite rebounder, this elite defensive player – Chicago were incredible defensively every time she was on the court – who has a ton of potential in her own right.”

Indeed, with the league’s leader in rebounds per game of 13.1 with 13.2 ppg, Reese did wonders for the Sky. Her ‘dawg mentality’ in the paint was something that gave her opponents a chill as she kept fighting for the ball. Adding the third overall pick Kamilla Cardoso only helped the Windy City franchise become one of the most touted teams in the league for their work on the glass. They even had the fourth-best second-chance points per game (11.2) and third-best record for points in the paint per game (40.3) in the WNBA. Indeed, a lot to do with how Reese fought in the restricted area.

Then she gets to the crux of the matter, “And if she wasn’t going up this generational rookie that is changing everything, [she] would have been Rookie of the Year. But because everything is through the lens of Caitlin, we focus a lot more on the flaws.” The Caitlin Clark effect is a popular phenomenon and while Sohi agrees that respect should be given where it’s due, a single athlete’s talents shouldn’t influence our judgment of the rest.

With the ‘generational talent’ and the Chi-Town Barbie‘s rookie seasons over, the conversation will shift to the next generation as and when they make their debuts. And the most prominent names are going to be Paige Bueckers and JuJu Watkins, NCAA’s current No. 1 pair of rivals. “I think Paige is gonna come into the league and it’s gonna happen to her,” Sohi points out.

In a later segment of the podcast, Van Lathan then asks what it is that keeps Reese and Clark constantly in the headlines. We know that the ring finger taunt from the former LSU player to the Iowa star was the beginning of the spotlight being shone on them. But Lathan also thinks, “Angel and all of her flashiness, Angel and all of her brashness, Angel and all of her hip hop bravado against Caitlin Clark, who people view as America’s golden girl.”

But the next generation is yet to recreate that magic. “If Angel can be a relevant enough player, it will kind of always be about that, because as great as JuJu is, as great as Paige is, they have yet to demonstrate that you have that extra thing that you can’t teach, that makes people care…and both Angel and Caitlin have that,” continues the analyst.

But as thrilling as this rivalry is to watch, the question to be asked is whether it was a single women’s college basketball moment that catapulted the sport into the limelight.

Caitlin Clark was pulling in audiences before the 2023 NCAA Final vs Angel Reese

It was a heartbreaking loss for the Hawkeyes at the 2023 tournament to the LSU Tigers. Angel Reese perhaps added more salt to the wound by pointing to her ring finger as a taunt to Caitlin Clark, that she was winning this and doing the ‘You Can’t See Me’ gesture of John Cena. But even before that point, the game had recorded 9.9 million viewers.

The number skyrocketed to 19 million when Iowa played South Carolina next year. The Hawkeyes lost both games but the number was 4 million more than the NCAA men’s Final.

It’s been the same in the W with both players but CC has had just that much of an upper hand. And Andrew Marchand and Scott Dochterman looked into the numbers before a rivalry existed in a recent piece for The Athletic. Going to her initial two years, the article points out how Clark’s games as a freshman on the Big Ten Network had about 30% more viewers than other games. By the next year, it was 98% and the ‘Caitlin Clark Effect’ was already well in place.

So it’s well and clear that the Indiana rookie has been a star in her own right even before the world knew of her. But perhaps what Seerat Sohi wants to point out is not to look at Angel Reese through the lens of Caitlin Clark but also as a talented player in her own right.