Caitlin Clark's rookie season has gotten off to a rocky start. She has every eye in the basketball world on her right now and while there have been some positive moments — 22 points on 9-of-17 shooting in her third game of the season, a combined 14 assists and 13 rebounds in her last two games. But there's been plenty of problems as well — 7-of-23 from the field in her first two games, including 5-of-18 from beyond the arc, 21 turnovers across three games, three losses for the Fever by a combined 68 points.
Clark is far from the only rookie who struggled at times during the first week of the first season, but hers have drawn the most attention because of who she is and the narrative that followed her into her debut.
The good news is that we've already seen her making some adjustments and a few other simple ones could make a big difference in her effectiveness over the next few weeks.
Clark has already gotten better at finding her bigs on the short roll
It's important to remember that Clark is an elite shooter, scorer and passer but right now, defenses are responding most strongly to her shooting. When she brings the ball up the floor and gets a high screen from Aliyah Boston or NaLyssa Smith, the opposing bigs have been hedging hard trying to eliminate space for her to shooting or turn the corner on the drive.
Early on, we saw her a bit too eager to pull-up even in situations where she had drawn two defenders.
Clark has unlimited range on her jumper and can certainly make shots like this. But pulling up over two defenders when she could slip a pass to Aliyah Boston at the top of the key and let her player 4-on-3 is probably the better play here and that, having players like Boston and NaLyssa Smith in this spot, is one of the biggest differences for Clark from her time at Iowa. She had talent around her with the Hawkeyes, but not elite talent like she has here.
To her credit, Clark appears to be reading these situations much better as time has gone on. She didn't completely stop with the deep jumpers over multiple defenders but she's also getting more out of her bigs on the short roll. Ironically, she hit Aliyah Boston perfectly on the first offensive possession of that first game. She did it two more times in the Fever's next game against the Liberty and three of her eight assists in the third game against the Liberty came out of variations of this scenario.
The problem is that swarming defenders are watching for these passes and six of her 21 turnovers this season (by my manual count) have come on late, sloppy or inaccurate passes out of a double-team and to a rolling big.
Caitlin Clark still needs to get better at attacking double-teams
Pulling up from 28 feet and dumping it to the screener aren't the only two ways Clark can exploit a double-team and she needs variation. She's better off if the defenders have to be ready for two options — pulling up or passing to the roller. She has an even bigger advantage if there are more variables the defense has to account for.
Here she splits a lazy double, gets into the lane and kicks it out to Kelsey Mitchell who dribbles into an open elbow jumper.
Here, she reads the coming double off the screen and just never slows down giving the defense time to set up — instead, she keeps her momentum and blows through for a layup.
The point is that she needs to keep being as proactive as possible, seeing those double-teams as an opportunity to attack in different ways.
Caitlin Clark needs to get comfortable being a decoy
The Fever have just started to scratch the surface of figuring out how Clark, Kelsey Mitchell, Aliyah Boston and NaLyssa Smith and their various skills and gravities can best work together. But I thought the play below was a perfect example of the hypothetical idea, where the Fever get a wide-open look and the only things they need from Clark are her gravity and a simple chest pass.
Kelsey Mitchell screens for Clark on the right-hand wing and then flares to the opposite side of the floor beyond the 3-point arc. Courtney Vandersloot has to pay so much attention to Clark that she lets Mitchell get way too much separation and completely misses that Boston is sliding over to screen her at the top of the key. Boston's defender is consumed watching both Boston and Clark and Mitchell is left completely by herself.
Clark's shooting and passing have a way of making the very difficult look easy. As she and her teammates get more and more reps together they won't have to worry so much about the hard stuff and they'll know how to create the easy ones. When that's happening regularly, the Fever are going to ready to start blowing the doors off opponents.
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