This is For The Win’s daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Did a friend recommend or forward this to you? If so, subscribe here. Have feedback? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey! Now, here’s Mike Sykes.
Good morning, Winners! Welcome back to the Morning Win. Thanks so much for rocking with us today. We appreciate you giving us a bit of your time.
Folks, Thursday is the final day of the regular season in the WNBA. The season is shorter, obviously, but this year was a blur for me. I’m sure many of you probably feel the same way.
I think part of that is the Caitlin Clark effect.
She’s been under the magnifying glass. Folks have been following her rookie season with a fervor that we’ve never quite seen in the WNBA before, for better or worse.
As soon as she came into the league, the conversation about how she’d adapt to the WNBA was a hot-button issue. Some people were hung up on the challenges that her peers and predecessors said she’d face. Others were convinced she’d immediately dominate the league. Even now, when the season is coming to a close, her play in the WNBA is still one of those weird topics where nobody can seem to find any middle ground.
With that said, I figured it’d be good to take stock of how she performed this season. What’s funny is that, after taking a look at the numbers, everybody was kind of right.
Folks who said Clark would struggle in the WNBA early on were right — she did.
May was a rough month for Clark. Through the first nine games of the season, she had a -14.4 net rating, according to the WNBA’s stats database. She only shot 37.7 percent from the floor and averaged 5.6 turnovers per game to just 6.6 assists. She wasn’t efficient, didn’t score well and couldn’t take care of the ball.
That stretch lasted for a bit before she picked things up in June. By the time we reached the All-Star break in July, Clark had found her stride. But when she came back? Whew, boy. She put the league on notice.
Clark’s post-All-Star break numbers are extremely good. She’s averaged 24.3 points per game in the 13 games since the WNBA’s return from the break. She’s shooting 36 percent from deep on over 10 attempts per game and is also dishing out 8.9 assists per night.
So the folks who thought she’d eventually flail her way into a great season were right, too. She’s a lock to make an All-WNBA team, which means she’d be considered one of the best 10 players in the league this season. That’s high praise.
There’s still a ton to clean up for Clark. Her turnover percentage is at 25.1 percent, per HerHoop Stats, which ranks in the 6th percentile in the league. That’s not great. Those turnovers are a major problem. They nullify that gaudy assist total and cut her efficiency quite a bit.
Sure, some of them are on passes that Clark’s teammates haven’t been able quite to corral in. But they often can’t catch the ball because the passes are a bit too ambitious and risky. Sometimes, they’re a bit sloppy, too.
I also think she could stand to take a few fewer threes per game on the season. She’s shooting nine per game, the most in the WNBA. But she’s only hitting 34 percent of them on the season. Meanwhile, she’s shooting 62.6 percent at the rim. Getting to the cup more would help her get to the line and bump that efficiency up further.
But these are nitpicks in what has otherwise been a brilliant season from Clark with plenty of ebbs and flows along the way.
The regular season might be over, but her first taste of the playoffs will come this weekend. It’ll be fascinating to watch her on that stage, too.
Can’t wait.
Wake up, Babe. New Ben Simmons highlights are here
Simmo the Savage is back and he’s not in street clothes this time, our Prince Grimes writes in Wednesday’s edition of Layup Lines. And — you’ll never believe this, but — he’s shooting jumpers!
Simmons got a good workout in with Chris Brickley at his shooting gym and, well, the jump shot looks OK!
Look at me, falling for the trap again. It’s a good thing Prince is smarter than that.
He’s skeptical — we all probably should be at this point. The real problem with Simmons is something Brickley can’t do anything about. It’s his health.
“At the same time, the problems with Simmons have been just as much about his physical breaking down as his mental. Back issues limited him to just 15 games last season. It’s the third straight year he’s been sidelined by back problems. Brickley can’t fix that.
That’s before we get to his shaken confidence. Though he averaged a career-high 11.9 rebounds per 36 minutes in those 15 games last season, and his 8.6 assists per 36 minutes were the second-best of his career, he was clearly a more tentative offensive player. Yes, he shot a career-high 58% from the field, but it was on a career-low 7.4 attempts per game — a number that’s dipped each year he’s played.
Even if he somehow gets over that mental hurdle, how much have the injuries and time away from the floor impacted his mobility and defensive abilities?”
Prince is asking the exact questions that need to be answered on Simmons here. Until those questions are answered, we should all remain skeptics.
SUBSCRIBE TO LAYUP LINES and get more standout NBA coverage like this on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from the FTW NBA crew.
Shohei Ohtani is almost there to 50-50
The quest for the first 50 homer-50 stolen base season in MLB history is almost complete.
Ohtani stole his 49th base of the season on Wednesday against the Marlins.
Almost there. 👀
Shohei Ohtani needs 1 SB and 2 HR for a 50/50 season. pic.twitter.com/Zg7flBVAqN
— MLB (@MLB) September 18, 2024
If you’re keeping count at home (which you absolutely should be), Ohtani only needs two homers and one more stolen base to create his own 50/50 club with a party of one.
Can you believe this guy is a pitcher? Man. We’ve simply never seen anything like this before, folks. Appreciate it.
Quick hits: The Rams are stuck … The CFB Petty list … and more
— Here’s Cory Woodroof on the Rams being stuck at a crossroads after an 0-2 start.
— Blake Schuster has his weekly College Football petty list. FSU fans, it’s OK if you don’t click this.
— Rory McIlroy broke his iron while taking this incredible shot. Charles Curtis has more.
— Here’s Robert Zeglinski with all the 2-0 teams in the NFL you should trust by now.
— And here’s Christian D’Andrea with our Week 3 picks for the NFL.
— We also ranked the NBA’s 2024-25 city jerseys here.
-Sykes ✌️