Moriah Jefferson headed to Saint Lucia to lie on the beach. Nneka Ogwumike flew to Houston to spend time with family. And Sabrina Ionescu spent so much time off her feet trying to get healthy, she said, “I don’t think I touched a basketball for a month.”
For some of the top picks in past WNBA drafts, the league’s Olympic break — which started July 21 and runs until Aug. 14 this season, with almost 30 of the league’s 143 players scheduled to compete in Paris — was more than nice.
It was necessary.
The American women begin the journey to defend their Olympic gold medal for a record eighth time July 29 when they meet Japan in the first game of pool play at the 2024 Paris Games. Missing from the roster: Record-setting rookie Caitlin Clark, who some believed was a lock for Team USA.
Clark, who has no senior national team experience, was left off in favor of older, more experienced guards (the youngest player is 26-year-old Ionescu). Clark has put on a show her first 26 games as a pro, leading the league in assists per game (8.2), rookies in scoring per game (17.1) and recording the first triple-double by a rookie. Given her stats, some were outraged at her exclusion, convinced it was a snub. Others said the break would be welcome for the 22-year-old phenom.
The numbers back up the latter assertion. A USA TODAY Sports study of past top picks and their WNBA stats proves rookies who got nearly a month off in the middle of their first professional season benefited from the break.
Consider Jefferson, the No. 2 overall pick in 2016. While No. 1 pick and UConn teammate Breanna Stewart made her Olympic debut in Rio — the third major tournament she’d played with the senior national team — Jefferson took a few weeks to breathe.
Like Clark, Jefferson had just played in consecutive Final Fours and barely had time to sleep before being drafted by the San Antonio Stars and starting training camp. When the league paused play for the Olympics in early August, Jefferson hopped on a plane bound for the Caribbean.
