The Women’s Basketball Gold Medal Game
- Thread starter Dawgg
- Start date
The writers wrote good scripts for the basketball tournaments.
I'll go ahead and piss off some of the social justice warriors on here.
Kaitlin Clark should have been on this team. We all know why she was not included.
Diana Taurasi (42 years old) averaged 1.3 points and didn't play much
Kaitlin Clark should have been on this team. We all know why she was not included.
Diana Taurasi (42 years old) averaged 1.3 points and didn't play much
Carl Lewis is right on the spot, and it's taken the men's track performance to highlight what's going on. They brought their best buddies, not the best team. The women would have had a hard time playing if they were biting their tongues.
What was the reason Clark wasn’t picked over Diana Taurasi? I’ll hang up and listen.
Ah, the famous “Kaitlin Clark”, a player so integral to the success of the gold medal winning US team that you can’t even bother to spell her damn name correctly, stalwart white knight.
I don't know if Clark should have been on the team, but if the criteria is supposedly the best players, then Taurasi being there makes that a complete truckload of BS.
She was undoubtedly one of the greatest female players of all time. She's not anymore and she was only on this team because her friends wanted to give her that 6th gold.
The vets on the men's team were instrumental in the wins. Taurasi did not touch the playing floor during the toughest game the US has played in the last 61 Olympic wins.
It would have been interesting to see what Clark's deep shooting would have brought to this team. They were abysmal from the perimeter today.
And she would not have been the focus of the defense, as she is in every other game she plays.
Btw, Jewell Lloyd is another vet who did not touch the floor.
She was undoubtedly one of the greatest female players of all time. She's not anymore and she was only on this team because her friends wanted to give her that 6th gold.
The vets on the men's team were instrumental in the wins. Taurasi did not touch the playing floor during the toughest game the US has played in the last 61 Olympic wins.
It would have been interesting to see what Clark's deep shooting would have brought to this team. They were abysmal from the perimeter today.
And she would not have been the focus of the defense, as she is in every other game she plays.
Btw, Jewell Lloyd is another vet who did not touch the floor.
Clark should be on it just for the marketing. She attracts viewers that would never watch titty basketball.
Trying to break a record. Thats all it was honestly because she’s hardly played.
So, Taurasi was on the team for the same reason that Larry Bird was on the 1992 Dream Team.
I don’t agree with her selection either. But I don’t think it’s automatic that Clark would be the best selection to make in her place.
Both Taurasi and Clark would be publicly stunts but I would argue Clark could be a little more productive.
And I didn't say that.
And Larry Bird didn't have 5 Olympic golds at his house. He had zero.
Right after talking about God for 5 minutes.
I think one issue with Clark is if she made the team but didn’t play there would be an outcry. She was in a bad spot. The coaches would get hate ether way.
Yea, not real crazy about athletes saying things like "God was working today" when you win an athletic event like God was taking sides and their were no believers on the other team. USA was very fortunate to win that game and really got outplayed during a lot of the game. Heck, 2 of the points Wilson scored came off the top of the backboard and down through the hoop. I didn't even think that was a legal basket?
I feel the same about invoking God after a win. Talk about your faith, but don't give an indication God's taking sides in sports. Maybe she didn't, but saying beatch, even in a positive way towards her teammate, in that moment was kinda sad.
And I didn't think that was a good basket either, but maybe it's a rule change or international rules are different.
It was a great game. I enjoyed it and Wilson is clearly the best player in the world. Even if she is annoying AF.
Seems like a completely impartial assessment.
Btw, if you're number is accurate I'm clearly in the 5%.
Hail Serbia.
I’ve always suspected God is way less interested in sports than athletes tend think…have no issue with being thankful for your own gifts and abilities but citing outcomes never has felt right…
I think this is where I am with it. Taurasi was a lifetime achievement award and I don’t think that being a benchwarmer to get a record number of golds is a reason for inclusion. I also don’t think Caitlin Clark is one of the 12 best female players in the US… yet. Plum and Ionescu are both great players and I think they’re MUCH better than Clark defensively.
Clark will probably be there for 2028, but there were better and more deserving players (like Arike Ogunbowale) that should have been in over Clark this year.
Also, I saw someone mention Carl Lewis and his assessment of the men’s relay team. I find that comical when he did the exact same sнit in 1996. He didn’t qualify for any running events and didn’t attend any of the relay camps and tried to strong arm his way onto the relay team just to become the athlete with the most gold medals.
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True but I have heard His name mentioned quite a bit during State football games **
I'm glad I don't watch women's basketball enough to make Caitlin Clark's Olympics presence or lack thereof into something political. But she is incredible and whoever made that call is a dubmass. That much I do know.
I don’t even know why Caitlin Clark is or isn’t political, but she didn’t attend the Olympic team tryouts (not her fault, she was playing in the Final Four), so the only real gauge the selection committee had was her time in the WNBA. I don’t know if you’ve watched her in the WNBA (I have), but it hasn’t been incredible. She’s been a good player, but she’s not what she was in college. I think she’ll get there, but not today.
I hear bits on sports radio here and there. Sounds like she had to adjust to the better athleticism and started to take off after getting minutes in. Looks like she went 17/6/8. Did any rookies come close to that?
Dunno. I hear what you say but when STATE Wins Big there seems something Holy & Righteous about it.
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I'm not here to argue if she should have been on the team. My main point was that Taurasi shouldn't have been
But Clark is averaging 17 points, 8 assists and 6 rebounds a game in her rookie season. If that's just good, what is incredible for a rookie in a league that is clearly out to get you?
She's also playing for easily the worst franchise in the league over the last 5+ years, and has helped make them actually competitive at 7th in a 12 team league.
Clark will be eventually but right now she isn’t one of the top WNBA players. Neither is Taurasi she was just included for career achievements. I have more of a problem with Taurasi being included than Clark being excluded.
Few things on this...
1. I wouldn't say she "took off", but since the Commissioner's Cup, she's become a more consistent scorer, as you would hope, but by the time she had shown those improvements, the selections were made.
2. One stat you left out was turnovers. She's leading the league in turnovers at 5.6 / game, 2 more per game than the next player. It's been a problem for her all season and it's one area where she hasn't improved. She's had 6 or more turnovers in 9 of the 13 games since the Commissioner's Cup and no game in that stretch lower than 4.
3. I don't know how her stats compare to the other rookies in the league, but that's irrelevant. There's no law that says they need to put a rookie on the Olympic basketball team. She's not just competing without rookies for a spot on the team, she's competing with the rest of the league. She didn't have the resume when the selections were made to justify giving her a spot on the team, regardless of how well she played for a rookie.
Again, I think she will end up being a great player, but I'm not sure leaving her off the Olympic team during this one Olympics was a dubmass move in terms of building a winning team. She was an alternate, which is probably the appropriate place given where she was in comparison to the rest of the league when selections happened.
Dude, if you're gonna try to come at me, learn to reply. It's hard for me to take you seriously anyway, but when you do stuff like this, it's impossible.
"for a rookie"... there's that qualifier again. That doesn't mean anything when we're talking about putting together the 12 best players.
Is she the best rookie in the league? Probably, yeah. It's either her or Angel Reese (who I actually do dislike), but they play two totally different roles and positions, so it's hard to directly compare. That doesn't put Clark in the top 12 players in the league though.
Guys, we're talking about two completely different things. I'm not saying that Caitlin Clark won't be one of the best players in the world. She might even end up as one of the best players in the world next season, but right now, she's not one of the 12 best and she damn sure wasn't when the selections were made.
I'm with you though about Taurasi and I've said that in this thread. She shouldn't have been included. I think Arike Ogunbowale would have been the right choice (and that pains me to say even 6 years since the 2018 national championship game).
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