Who knew that a conversation about basketball players could involve conversation about basketball?
On Tuesday’s episode of CBS Sports’ “We Need to Talk NOW” — a new podcast focused on women in sports — co-hosts Ashley Nicole Moss and Alicia Jay discussed possible winners of the 2024 WNBA Rookie of the Year award, which at this point looks like a two-way race between forward Angel Reese of the Chicago Sky and guard Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever.
“I’m between — and I know the internet’s gonna hate this because they love to pit these women against each other — right now for me it’s between Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark for different reasons,” Moss said before ultimately giving a very slight “edge” to Reese.
The Reese-Clark discussion went on for nearly five minutes without an emphatic case for one or the other.
In fact, Moss initially named the two women as front-runners for the award but did not identify a favorite. She simply described them as “a tier ahead of their rookie class.”
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Jay agreed that Reese and Clark stand out among their peers. But she also picked a current favorite.
“I am leaning towards Angel Reese,” she said, emphasizing the word “leaning.”
“I’m not mad at that,” Moss replied, suggesting that she agreed with the choice.
The reason, Jay said, was Reese’s consistency.
Do you agree with them?
“Definitely, from the start, Angel came in ready to go, and she’s been consistent. So, if I were to lean toward somebody right now, as it stands, between both of them — because I do agree that it is one of theirs to lose — I would lean toward Angel because she has been consistent,” she said.
Moss agreed that Reese’s physicality made her more “WNBA ready” from the beginning. Thus, she ultimately agreed with her co-host that, if forced to choose, she would give Reese “a little bit of an edge” over Clark.
Since the 2023 NCAA championship game between Reese’s LSU Tigers and Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes, the two women have energized their sport.
In that game, a 102-85 LSU victory, Reese began to develop a reputation as a villain in a burgeoning rivalry. She has since embraced the reputation, albeit with a mixture of unbecoming self-pity.
Meanwhile, Clark has emerged as one of the biggest superstars in sports.
After setting the NCAA Division I scoring record, she helped her team oust Reese’s Tigers from the 2024 NCAA Tournament and then led the Hawkeyes to a second consecutive championship game, where they fell to the undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks.
As a professional, the first overall pick in this year’s WNBA draft has brought that long-floundering league unprecedented exposure.
Clark’s stratospheric popularity, however, has generated resentment among some WNBA veterans who have made no effort to conceal their jealousy. Cheap shots and flagrant fouls have ensued.
Worse yet, Clark’s popularity has provided fodder for the usual suspects who refuse to stop talking about skin color.
Clark, who is white, and Reese, who is black, have become proxies in a culture war that only a tiny minority of troublemakers wants to keep fighting. Sadly, some WNBA players have inhaled that poisonous smoke of race-baiting Marxist indoctrination.
An actual conversation about basketball, therefore, came as a welcome diversion.
By “consistency,” Moss and Jay meant that Reese has posted similar stats on a game-by-game basis since the beginning of the season. In fact, the Sky forward has now amassed six consecutive double-doubles (double-digit points and rebounds).
Furthermore, Reese leads all rookies in rebounds (10.2 per game) and steals (1.8 per game).
Clark, on the other hand, leads all rookies in points (16.3) and assists (6.2) per game.
But Clark’s weakness has shown itself in the turnover category, where she leads the entire league by a wide margin (5.5 per game).
Thus, since neither the Fever (6-10) nor the Sky (4-9) have achieved much team success thus far, the argument for Reese hinges on Clark’s up-and-down performances, highlighted by a propensity for giving the ball away too often.
On the other hand, few players handle the ball more often than Clark does. And none receive more attention. That kind of on-court pressure can at least partially account for the turnovers.
Comparisons between athletes can be tricky enough when they involve players from the same sport. Thus, comparisons to players from other sports almost always involve things like intangibles or circumstances.
With that in mind, one useful comparison to Clark’s current situation dates back more than a quarter-century.
In 1998, the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts made Peyton Manning the first overall pick in the draft.
Then, as a rookie, Manning showed flashes of his future Hall of Fame brilliance by throwing for 3,739 yards and 26 touchdowns.
But he also led the league with 28 interceptions as the quarterback of a dreadful Colts team that won only three games. As a result, in the Rookie of the Year balloting, he finished a very distant second to Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Randy Moss, another future Hall of Famer.
Five MVP awards and two Super Bowl titles later, Manning’s career turned out fine. In fact, in the 12 full seasons he played between 2002 and 2014, he threw for at least 27 touchdowns and never threw more than 19 interceptions and his teams won at least 10 games each season.
In other words, Manning became the model of consistency.
Clark might not win the 2024 Rookie of the Year award. But give her time. She has Manning-like potential in a league that desperately needs that kind of star.
