Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese should share ROY award, just as they do a place in WNBA history

Late subsequent week, the WNBA will ship out ballots for its end-of-season awards. Sixty-eight media members may have eight days to submit choices for 10 totally different awards, together with Most Useful Participant, Defensive Participant of the Yr, and first- and second-team All-WNBA.

What I’m about to say won’t ever occur, and I’m equally conscious it will be wildly unpopular on the fringes of Caitlin Clark’s and Angel Reese’s fan bases, the place rational dialogue goes to die and a praise of 1 participant is considered as a criticism of the opposite. However, what the heck. Let’s do it anyway.

For me, this season’s Rookie of the Yr award needs to be shared by Clark and Reese, not just for their performances on the court docket, the place every has achieved issues by no means earlier than seen within the league’s practically three-decade historical past, but additionally for his or her impression off it. The 2 have been like neodymium magnets, attracting viewers and producing income at a dizzying charge.

Longtime league followers will argue the W’s recognition was trending up earlier than the rookies’ arrival, which is true. However the stage of curiosity amongst mainstream media and informal followers was negligible for a lot of that point. Broadcast companions even handled the W as an afterthought, neither selling nor amplifying it with a lot vigor.

At present, nonetheless, the league has an everyday place on the ESPN rundown sheet, and its stars are sought-after friends on standard podcasts. Is that solely due to Clark and Reese? No. However is it largely due to them? Sure.

Their Q Scores popping out of faculty had been as excessive or larger than anybody within the W, the byproduct of a rivalry that started two seasons in the past when Reese and LSU defeated Clark and Iowa for the NCAA championship. In transitioning to the W, the 2 introduced all these eyeballs with them, elevating the league’s recognition to some extent not seen since its inaugural season.

Their affect will be seen in attendance figures. Clark, the all-time main scorer in NCAA historical past, has helped the Indiana Fever go from rating eleventh amongst 12 groups in common attendance in 2023, at 4,066 spectators, to No. 1 at 16,978, in response to Throughout the Timeline. Not surprisingly, the Fever had been the opponent in July when the two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces attracted 20,366 followers to T-Cell Area to document the biggest WNBA crowd in 25 years.

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The truth that Indiana can be the top-drawing highway crew mustn’t come as a shock to anybody — the Fever are averaging 14,837 spectators away from residence, in response to Throughout the Timeline — however it would possibly shock informal observers to study that the struggling Chicago Sky rank No. 2. The principle purpose? They’re led by Reese and her 4.1 million Instagram followers.

That’s why I imagine they need to share the award. Years from now when assume items are achieved on the expansion of the league, all roads are prone to lead again to 2024 and the arrival of Clark and Reese. What higher option to acknowledge that than by having their names facet by facet within the document books?

I don’t care what comparisons you make each @Reese10Angel and @CaitlinClark22 deserve the Rookie of the Yr Award! The strain and the burden of this season has eternally modified the @WNBA and each rookies rose to the highest and exceeded all our expectations! Take a bow girls👏🏽👏🏽

— Lisa Leslie (@LisaLeslie) September 2, 2024

I get why some would favor to scale back the vote to on-court efficiency. If pressured to take action, my vote, if I had one, would go to Clark. Her means to impression video games as a shooter, passer and pace-setter is exceptional, and he or she solely figures to get higher. Past that, she has helped to make the Fever related for the primary time in years, rallying them from a 3-10 begin to a crew that might be an issue within the playoffs.

Indiana has gained 4 in a row, six of seven, and is 9-3 since July 6. Throughout that stretch, the Fever defeated 4 of the highest 5 groups within the standings — New York, Connecticut, Seattle and Minnesota — in addition to a harmful Dallas crew. At 17-16, they’ve clinched a playoff spot for the primary time since 2016, are over .500 for the primary time in additional than 5 years and have scored 100 or extra factors in back-to-back video games for the primary time in franchise historical past. Meaning one thing.

Individually, Clark has damaged the franchise’s rookie scoring document, the W’s single-game assists document (19 vs. Dallas) and is on tempo to interrupt the league’s single-season assists mark. She at present ranks first with a mean of 8.4 assists per sport. Extra tellingly, she has scored or assisted on 37.3 p.c of the Fever’s factors, in response to ESPN, which might break the WNBA document if it holds.

Reese’s sport will not be as diversified or polished, however that shouldn’t be taken to imply it’s any much less dominant. Once you break league information — not simply rookie information — as soon as held by legends like Candace Parker, Sylvia Fowles and Tina Charles, you’re in rarefied air, which is the case for Reese. The “Bayou Barbie,” as she is thought, is a relentless glass cleaner who holds league information for complete rebounds and offensive rebounds. She is also a strolling double-double whose 15 consecutive video games with double digits in factors and rebounds broke Parker’s mark. She at present has 25 double-doubles, which is three shy of the league document set by Alyssa Thomas in 2023.

GO DEEPER

Angel Reese units WNBA single-season rebounding document

However speaking about Reese or Clark solely by way of statistics appears inadequate contemplating their significance to the league. Some have tried to match their arrival to that of Magic Johnson and Larry Chook within the NBA in 1979. Though comparable in some methods — they had been rivals who competed in opposition to one another in an NCAA last; additionally one is Black, the opposite White — there’s a delicate but vital distinction. Johnson and Chook helped resuscitate a dying league, whereas Clark and Reese have constructed on a basis that was already in place, which isn’t any small feat. The accomplishment turns into much more spectacular when wanting on the progress of the league.

Think about: The W tracks the demographic make-up of its audiences and what it calls complementary viewership marks (CVM) amongst diversified teams. Within the first month of the season, its CVM grew 60 p.c 12 months over 12 months amongst folks of coloration. Essentially the most represented demographic teams in that class — Hispanics and African Individuals — had a 96 p.c and 67 p.c year-over-year enhance in viewership, in response to the league.

“The expansion of various audiences can be leading to deepened and extra frequent single-user engagement throughout digital platforms,” the league stated in an announcement at the moment. “WNBA App month-to-month lively customers is up 613 p.c year-over-year, and League Cross subscriptions greater than tripled within the first two weeks of the season with the very best common minutes watched in league historical past.”

I’d argue these numbers are greater than any participant statistic, which is why Clark and Reese ought to share the award.

(Photograph of Caitlin Clark, left, and Angel Reese: Jeff Haynes / NBAE by way of Getty Photos)