Team USA chair explains Olympic roster decisions, Caitlin Clark's absence (2024)

U.S. women’s national team committee chair Jen Rizzotti laid out on Tuesday how the Olympic women’s basketball roster was selected and why Caitlin Clark is not among the 12 players headed to Paris for this summer’s Games.

The Fever rookie was absent from the list submitted by the organization’s board for approval last Monday for a few reasons, Rizzotti said. The committee prioritized players who are familiar playing with each other and within Olympic coach Cheryl Reeve’s system. (Clark did not attend a senior Team USA training camp during this Olympic cycle as she was competing in the Final Four with Iowa during USA Basketball’s final camp in April.)

“We were supposed to be giving Cheryl a team that has experience and familiarity with international competition, familiarity with the coaching system, leadership abilities, versatility, depth at every position,” Rizzotti told The Athletic. “The 12 that we selected, we felt were the best when it boiled down to a basketball decision.”

The roster features nine players who have participated in prior Olympics (including 3×3 competition) and is made up of WNBA MVPs, All-Stars and All-WNBA honorees with plenty of USA Basketball experience.

First-time Olympians:

🇺🇸 Alyssa Thomas — @connecticutsun
🇺🇸 Kahleah Copper — @PhoenixMercury
🇺🇸 Sabrina Ionescu — @nyliberty https://t.co/vJULFhoIn2 pic.twitter.com/bHYXB9rWfi

See Also

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— The Athletic WBB (@TheAthleticWBB) June 11, 2024

Rizzotti said she was aware of the buzz around Clark’s absence, in particular. But the committee, she said, was tasked to make a decision based on the criteria they were given, which included factors like attitude, adaptability to the international game and likelihood of contributing to team success, among others.

“We don’t live in a bubble,” she said. “We’re not on a jury where we’re quarantined in a hotel without any access. All of us are seeing and hearing and getting texts and calls about this decision. And that was expected.

“Certainly the success that Caitlin had in college in addition to the way that she’s played in the beginning parts of the (WNBA) season was taken into consideration as we talked about this roster, but I think out of respect for the process, we tried to make sure we upheld our integrity when it came to selecting the roster. Marketability, popularity, TV viewership, jersey sales was not something that we were supposed to be measuring.”

Some notable considerations were made in the selection process as Team USA goes for an eighth consecutive gold medal this summer:

• There has been public speculation that not selecting Clark, the uber-popular 2024 No. 1 pick, goes against part of USA Basketball’s stated mission, which states, “USA Basketball is a worldwide leader in the sport through competitive excellence in international competition and by promoting, growing and elevating the game at all levels.”

Rizzotti acknowledged that the idea of broadening the sport is part of the organization’s mission. But she added: “USA Basketball does a lot for youth basketball in the United States. It has dozens of programs around the country that support the mission statement, but also part of its mission is to win Olympic Gold medals. And so the board selects and approves a committee to make those decisions, and they give us criteria to make those decisions. We did our job based on that criteria.”

Rizzotti disputed a USA Today report that cited two long-time USA Basketball veterans stating the committee’s “concern about how Clark’s millions of fans would react to what would likely be limited playing time on a stacked roster was a factor in the decision making.”

“What people have to remember is that the committee does not determine playing time,” she said. “The committee does not tell Cheryl who to start, who to play. Our job is to put together the best team. Playing time can’t come into consideration because it’s not our purview.”

• One of the biggest question marks about the current roster is the status of Las Vegas Aces point guard Chelsea Gray. Gray is yet to play in the WNBA this season after suffering a lower-leg injury in Game 3 of the 2023 WNBA Finals last fall. The Olympic team plays in the WNBA All-Star Game on July 20 and competes in an exhibition game against Germany, in London, on July 23.

Rizzotti said USA Basketball has been in contact with Gray (who has participated at its camps this winter), Gray’s representation and the Aces. “We’re confident that she’ll be able to compete in the Olympics at a very high level,” Rizzotti said.

• This year’s roster skews older than previous ones. (The youngest players on this roster are 26.)

Rizzotti compared the challenge of assembling Team USA’s roster to building a WNBA team. “We all wish we had an extra roster spot (in the WNBA) to develop a young player because the league is so deep and so strong and if players aren’t retiring or getting hurt, there’s no room, right?” she said. “It’s almost gotten to a similar level at USA Basketball, where the pool is so deep and so strong that when you’re talking about women playing at the peak of their game — you don’t hit your peak until you’re 26 or 27 — so now we’re evaluating these players out of college against women that are in their prime. There’s a difference.

“I don’t know if this is the wave of the future. Our goal is to set up this program to win gold medal after gold medal after gold medal. We feel that we have a lot of young players on this team that will continue the legacy and be able to welcome in the next group of Olympians in 2028 who will then be charged with doing the same thing.”

• A unique factor in the selection process is that it occurs while the WNBA is in season. Some players, like Phoenix Mercury guard Kahleah Copper, have excelled on new teams this year, leading some to wonder about how much an early-season boost plays into the committee’s evaluation. “As much as we wanted to make this decision about the entire body of work, we also didn’t want to be super reactive,” Rizzotti said. “We wanted to be holistic in how we created a roster with depth and versatility and experience.

“Regardless of how someone individually might be playing on their WNBA team, we had to evaluate them as part of the USA Basketball team, and very often their roles are different when they play for USA Basketball. And so a 30- or 40-point game can’t be used as a determining factor, when they could be used very differently.”

(Photo: Steve Christo-Corbis / Getty Images)

Ben Pickman is a staff writer for The Athletic covering the WNBA and women’s college basketball. Previously, he was a writer at Sports Illustrated where he primarily covered women’s basketball and the NBA. He has also worked at CNN Sports and the Wisconsin Center for Journalism Ethics. Follow Ben on Twitter @benpickman