The Angel Reese vs. Caitlin Clark “rivalry” has extended into the WNBA this season, as they’re the two top contenders for the Rookie of the Year Award. We’re using our DRIP model to determine who’s having the better campaign.
There’s never been a more anticipated class of rookies in WNBA history than in 2024.
The infusion of talent has been great for the league, and two players who are well-known from their women’s college basketball days have emerged as the top Rookie of the Year contenders.
Caitlin Clark was the presumptive Rookie of the Year favorite as the No. 1 overall WNBA Draft pick and one of the more exciting players to ever come into the league. She’s lived up to the hype and looks poised to be a dominant force on offense for years to come.
Angel Reese fell to seventh in the draft due to concerns about the polish of her offensive game, but she’s been a versatile weapon for the Chicago Sky on both sides of the ball. Like Clark, she’s already shown significant improvement since coming into the WNBA.
Of course, the two players have had a “rivalry” since first meeting in the NCAA Tournament Division I championship game in 2023 – when Reese celebrated LSU winning the “ring” and lit up social media – then again this past season when Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes triumphed over the Tigers in a national quarterfinal.
Two players with wildly different games are neck-and-neck for WNBA Rookie of the Year. Who has been better heading into Saturday’s WNBA All-Star Game in Phoenix? Let’s examine each player’s game on both sides of the ball and use DRIP, our catch-all player rater, to determine who has provided more value this season.
Offense
Clark came into the league with an exciting offensive profile and has flashed the ability to be one of the top offensive players in the league.
The 6-foot point guard’s unique combination of long-range shooting and playmaking set her apart from almost anyone else in the league. She leads the league in assists per game (8.2) and is tied for third in 3-pointers made (71). She makes a lot of incredibly entertaining passes, but her most important passes are the ones in which she leverages all the attention the defense pays to her into easy looks for her teammates.
This is a pass almost no one else in the league can make because few get this passing lane. It’s a basic read, but one that comes from Washington Mystics guard Shatori Walker-Kimbrough being so concerned about Clark simply coming down the left side that she loses her player instantly.
All of her passes won’t be this simple, but Clark has a great feel for where her teammates – including 2023 WNBA Rookie of the Year Aliyah Boston – are on the floor. Her vision combined with the fact she opens up passing lanes with her size and shooting ability will keep her at the top of the assist leaderboard her entire career. And the playmaking just keeps getting better.
Clark didn’t have a double-digit assist total in her first 17 games. Since then, she’s reached double-digits in seven of nine games, including setting the WNBA single-game assist record with 19 in her latest game against the Dallas Wings. She’s gradually gained more freedom on offense throughout the season and cashed in the additional opportunities.
So, if Clark is one of the best playmakers in the league and in the top five in made 3-pointers, then why does DRIP see her as only the 21st-best offensive player in the league?
There are two key reasons.
The first is the scorer hasn’t shot as well on 3-pointers as she did in college. She was a 37.7% shooter on 3s at Iowa compared to only 32.7% in the WNBA. It’s still a small sample size, but with almost two-thirds of her shots coming from behind the arc, a slight uptick in percentage would do wonders for her overall efficiency.
Clark’s biggest problem, however, isn’t shooting – it’s her turnover rate, 5.6 per game, which is astronomical among the world’s best players. She has already set the WNBA record for turnovers with only 65% of the season complete, and she’s averaging 2.0 more turnovers per game than the league’s second-most turnover-prone player (Alyssa Thomas of the Connecticut Sun).
And while some of Clark’s turnovers can be attributed to her unique style of play needing time to jell with teammates, she’s made too many errant passes that find their way into the hands of defenders.
While it would be nearly impossible for Clark to be an upper-echelon offensive player with this many turnovers, there are reasons to believe she’ll get the number down to something more manageable. The first WNBA rookie to post a triple-double – against the New York Liberty on July 6 – has shown an advanced understanding of complex defenses against her, and most of her turnovers come from trying to do too much as opposed to an inability to read defenses.
Although her raw turnover numbers per game were similar in her freshman and senior seasons of college, her turnover rate went down from 18.2% to 15.5%. She averaged about the same number of turnovers with much more offensive responsibility.
A good WNBA comparison for her trajectory in this area might be Sabrina Ionescu. The Liberty standout was a great shooter and passer coming into the WNBA, but had a turnover rate of 22.4% in her first full season. This year, that turnover rate is down to 13.5%, and DRIP rates her as the top offensive player in the league. Clark’s turnover rate is at 27.1%, so she’ll need to reduce that even more, but, if and when she does, her efficiency will skyrocket.
While Clark came into the league as a presumed offensive superstar, Reese was seen as a bit of an offensive project. But her offense has been better than advertised. She rates as the 35th-best offensive player in the league, according to DRIP.
Clark has the potential for two transcendent skills in her offensive profile with her passing and shooting. Reese has a transcendent skill as well in her offensive rebounding. She’s already shown herself as one of the premier offensive rebounders in league history.
If that seems like an exaggeration, consider the 6-3 power forward is on pace to break the record for the most offensive rebounds in a season. Not the rookie record, mind you, the record for any player. And while there has been speculation that is mostly because she rebounds her own misses, that has been debunked by Stephen Noh of The Sporting News.
Reese, whose 15-game double-double streak earlier this season set the WNBA’s consecutive game record, is elite at grabbing her own misses, but she’s also elite at grabbing other players’ misses. A relentless motor is a skill and when it’s paired with the size and athleticism of Reese, it’s a true weapon.
Reese’s shot gets blocked a lot and her 40.2 field-goal percentage isn’t as high as you’d like for someone who gets most of her attempts at the rim. She’s still not much of a jump shooter and relies on her athleticism and physicality to do most of the work. But she’s starting to adjust to the caliber of athletes she has to compete against to score in the WNBA, and, on some possessions, she’s getting a lot more of her work done before she even gets the ball.
Reese has gotten blocked a lot this season when going with the turnaround over her shoulder, but this time, she muscles her way into perfect position before getting the ball. When she gets to her spot, she’s really tough to stop, and she’s starting to get to her spots more.
She’s not the same offensive hub as Clark, but Reese is a good passer from both the high post and down low, and her size and quick first step combination has caused headaches for defenses. Combine those skills with her incredible offensive rebounding and she’s been a real positive on that end of the floor.
Reese will likely never be a prolific shooter, but she’s slowly extending her range. She’s looked more comfortable with her jump shot recently, and a gain in free throw percentage also indicates she works hard on her shot and can improve. She improved her free throw percentage a bit in every year of her career since being a freshman, going from 67.1% in 2020-21 in her first of two seasons at Maryland through her two seasons at LSU to 76.0% this year.
Her ability to be a passable shooter would be crucial to the Sky moving forward, as she’ll likely share the frontcourt with Kamilla Cardoso for years to come.
Defense
Reese has shown a lot of offensive gains this season, but she got drafted in large part due to her defensive upside. She’s proven to be a difference-maker defensively already as a rookie.
Her versatility makes her stand out. Even in a league that’s more athletic than ever, Reese’s ability to corral players on the perimeter while also providing size inside give Sky coach Teresa Weatherspoon weapons that put out fires no matter where they happen on the court.
Reese is tied for 10th in the league with 1.5 steals per game and manages to get those without compromising her defensive position. While Clark has an advanced ability to read opposing defenses when she is on offense, Reese has the inverse ability at understanding what offenses want to do. And if you try a long pass in her direction? Good luck.
Look how early in this play Reese seems to diagnose what the Wings are trying to accomplish. When you couple that kind of basketball IQ with her skill, it’s not hard to imagine her as one of the best defensive players in the league with continued development. DRIP currently sees Reese as the 14th-best defender in the league.
Reese’s biggest drawback on defense has been guarding bigger players, such as when 6-4 A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces dropped 31 points in a matchup on June 27. At times Reese has given up good post position early on and not been able to recover. And she didn’t offer enough deterrence at the rim to start the season.
That’s improved recently. Reese was credited with just two total blocks in her first 17 games, but she has eight in seven games since then. Blocks aren’t everything, but in Reese’s case, the eye test has matched that she’s improved on the interior defensively. Continuing to be consistent down low against the toughest players in the league is the next step in her evolution.
DRIP rates Clark as a slight-negative defensively (51st in the league), but that’s not necessarily bad for a rookie guard, and she’s ahead of other highly drafted rookies such as Jacy Sheldon of the Wings and Rickea Jackson of the Los Angeles Sparks. Clark will likely never be a difference-maker on defense, but she fights hard and uses her great size for a point guard to recover well when she gets beat by the opposition.
Clark is 14th in blocks per game (0.8), and third among rookies despite being a guard. It’s not all about size, though. She has the second-most blocks in the league for a player under 6-3. Her shot-blocking and ability to generate steals (12th in the league in steals per game, just behind Reese) will likely create some real value in her defense when the rest of her game catches up on that end.
She has problems getting caught on screens and overhelping off the ball, which are two of the more common problems for rookies learning the nuances of WNBA team defense. With some growth, Clark could be an above-average defender in time.
Who’s Been More Valuable?
Because the gap on defense is currently wider than the gap on offense between Reese and Clark, DRIP gives Reese the advantage as the better player. Reese ranks 21st and Clark 25th in the league, which are both good numbers for players in their rookie season.
There are some indicators Clark could rise during the final games of the campaign.
WNBA players have to play the season shortly after their college careers end, and, although this is true for every player, no one has had it harder than Clark. She was second in Division I in minutes played this past season and is currently third in the WNBA in minutes per game (35.2).
The Indiana Fever have also played the most games in the league this season, which will get Clark a couple extra days of rest after the Olympic break (neither she nor Reese is a member of Team USA). If Clark is a bit worn down, it might be showing up in her shooting, so a break could get her legs back under her a bit.
The Fever haven’t just played the most games so far, they’ve also had the toughest schedule, which gives them the easiest schedule moving forward. Six of the Fever’s remaining 14 games will be against the four non-playoff teams as of the All-Star Game. This will give the Fever a chance to rise in the standings, and Clark an opportunity to play against more porous defenses than she’s faced to date. Don’t’ be surprised to see her efficiency improve when the schedule resumes.
Reese has shown improved play as well recently, which is what makes the WNBA Rookie of the Year race so exciting. Both players came into the league as talented players with a lot of hype, have delivered on it, and gotten better as the season has progressed.
And the Rookie of the Year race is just the start of the WNBA battle between these two players, as Reese and Clark both seem destined to be pillars of the league for years to come.
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