Caitlin Clark certainly isn’t the most imposing force in the WNBA. At just six feet tall and around 150 pounds, the Indiana Fever star is one of the smaller players in the league. But that hasn’t stopped Clark from asserting her will on the opponent whenever she takes the court. Nick Van Exel and Shannon Sharpe lauded the second-year guard for ignoring the noise and embracing the physicality she has faced at the professional level.
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Van Exel praised Clark for continuing to put in work while not letting the opinions of detractors affect her mindset. This prompted Sharpe to mention an NBA player with a similar size and build in Atlanta Hawks star Trae Young, who faced the same obstacles when he entered the league.
Despite doubts about his frame, Young burst onto the scene with Atlanta in 2018-19, narrowly losing out on Rookie of the Year to another sensational guard in Luka Doncic. Young proved his first campaign wasn’t a fluke, either, continuing to cement his status as one of the NBA’s best scorers and playmakers the very next season.
Young had one of the more impressive sophomore jumps in recent memory, a feat Clark could match in the WNBA. “People said the same thing with Trae Young,” Sharpe said regarding Clark’s perseverance through physicality. “I said Trae Young’s gonna be good in the NBA. ‘Man, he too small!’ I said the dude led the nation in scoring and assists.”
“So if [Young] can’t score, he can facilitate. And if you try to take away his bigs, he can score,” Sharpe continued. “When you can shoot the ball with the range [Clark] has, she can get all the way to the rim. You see how she’s averaging eight assists a game in college. You mean to tell me that’s not gonna translate? Of course it is.”
Passing ability makes up for size
The Hall of Fame tight end pointed to Jimmer Fredette as a smaller player who struggled at the next level because he wasn’t a playmaker. As an undersized guard without the ability to slash or pass, it was easy for defenders to take away his strengths. Young and Clark won’t have to face the same kind of defensive approach because their passing ability is just as effective as their deep-range shooting.
“Now, Trae Young, okay, yeah, you crowd him. Jimmer didn’t have the handle that Trae had that can get his own shot off. Jimmer couldn’t facilitate. Trae can get you a 30 [point] 20 [assist] game,” Sharpe claimed. “There haven’t been that many guys in NBA history that can get you a 30-20 game.”
With their undersized frames and deadly two-way offensive skill sets, Trae Young and Caitlin Clark are very similar basketball players. If the 23-year-old continues on the same trajectory that Young has, she’ll have no problem dominating at the next level, even as one of the WNBA’s smaller stars.
