#91: OK, Who is Caitlin Clark's Comparison?

We've all seen the video by now, right?

Or, at least, Caitlin Clark's reaction.

Clark was on NBC this past week with Carmelo Anthony and Reggie Miller, talking about important things like the WNBA CBA negotiations.

But the main takeaway that people have from the segment is when Maria Taylor asked the NBA legends which player Clark reminds them of.

Melo said Luka Dončić, while Reggie said …Payton Pritchard.

OK, the video is funny, since it caught Clark by surprise. Don't diss the Oregon legend that is P2!

But yeah, I get it.

I also don't fully see Luka, either.

See, I get what Reggie was saying. I don't think that he was sneak dissing Caitlin. It was more of a compliment to P2 than anything.

Because when you're trying to find a comparison, it truly is right in front of your eyes – and also statistically.

It's hard to have a direct WNBA to NBA comparison for a lot of reasons, but the way that we are going to do this is look at Caitlin's PER 40 minute numbers compared to NBA players PER 40 numbers from 2024 to 2026.

Why that period?

Well, for Caitlin, it's her entire career – 53 games. And for the NBA comparison, it gives us a larger sample to use for the metrics.

The stats that we are using is looking at what makes Caitlin, Caitlin.

She's a high-volume shooter, a guard who is blitzed off of screens, who has amazing court vision but also turns the ball over a ton.

Her biggest room for improvement, too, is her defense, so we have to take that into account.

I had a player in mind before I started this exercise, and maybe the stats that I picked help form that narrative, but the eye test told me the same thing.

Caitlin has one clear comp, but another who surprised me, as well.

Let's take a look, shall we?

Trae Young. That is who Caitlin always reminded me of. Both players are hoopers who the consensus labeled the next Steph Curry in some form or fashion, but it's an unfair comparison to put on any hooper.

Both Clark and Young are negative defenders, and both of them are sensational facilitators, but often go for the more difficult pass resulting in turnovers.

The James Harden numbers popped out to me when I ran the data. You could argue he's almost a better comparison, but I almost feel it's more insulting to compare someone to Harden than it is to Pritchard given, well, how Harden operates.

I wanted to see if I was alone in the Young and Clark comps.

I wasn't.

Here is a nice TikTok that broke their comparison down – and how Clark could learn from Young – last year.

He Went Full Michael Waterloo

One thing that I enjoyed from my time at The Athletic writing about fantasy baseball is that they allowed me to be me.

For better and worse.

I wrote some great things. I also wrote some things that were … odd.

But they allowed me to use my voice, and I appreciated that.

For Baseball Prospectus, I'm still finding how much wiggle room I have to be me and how much I need to mask up and just be a fantasy baseball scribe.

Well, when they told me to "write about third basemen in any way that I wanted to," I took that as a challenge.

I went full Michael Waterloo with an outside-the-box idea.

I used an Enneagram test to see which third baseman was the right third baseman for managers to draft.

They published it.

I'm elated.

NiJaree Canady Feature

I was just thinking of Canady earlier this week as we get closer to softball season.

It's not surprising, then, that Meghan Hall – friend of the newsletter and fantastic writer at USA Today - wrote this feature on her.

I definitely recommend checking it out.

Meghan will also be joining my podcast, The Next Woman Up, this week to talk all things women's basketball at the collegiate level. Grace Sullivan, of Northwestern, will be our guest.

Last week, we had soon-to-be first-round pick out of UCLA, Gianna Kneepkens, as our guest.

Check it out!

Until Next Time

Depending on how the world burns down this weekend, I'm planning on a full Unrivaled 1-on-1 Tournament preview for Monday.

I will be at Stanford and Georgia Tech Sunday, so things could change. But that's the place.

Fuck Ice.

I love you awesome nerds.