Despite a record-breaking NCAA career at Iowa and an historic start to her WNBA career, Caitlin Clark has always posted high turnover numbers.
In each of her three seasons with the Indiana Fever, Clark has averaged at least five per game. As a rookie in 2024, she led the WNBA in turnovers with 78 more than the player behind her. And on Sunday, in a win over Seattle, Clark posted five more in just 24 minutes of action.
That led NBC/Peacock announcer Kate Scott, during the fourth quarter of the game, to mount quite a strong defense of Clark’s seeming looseness with the ball, arguing that compared with other NBA stars, her turnover numbers are quite normal.
“We all read the comments, right? We see that some folks have a problem with how much Caitlin turns the ball over, they’re always looking for something,” she said. “So I looked things up, just compared to the M-NBA, leaders in assists. Nikola Jokic, about 10 assists per game, four turnovers a game. Cade Cunningham … about nine-and-a-half assists per game, four turnovers a game himself. So calm down, everybody.”
For her career, Clark has averaged 8.5 assists and 5.4 turnovers per game. Her usage rate is the highest in the WNBA.
Scott and broadcast partner LaChina Robinson concurred that the level of involvement in the Fever offense, possession to possession, makes her more liable to post high turnover numbers than other star players.
However, Robinson then teased Scott for digging too deep into social media chatter, leading Scott to double down.
“Why are people (saying), ‘Caitlin’s turning the (ball over)’? Yeah, because she holds the basketball for the majority of the 40 minutes,” Scott said. “Welcome to the sport of basketball.”
Scott does bring a unique perspective as a top announcer for both the WNBA and NBA (where she calls local Philadelphia 76ers games), but Robinson’s suggestion to ignore online chatter is especially sound when it comes to Clark, around whom there is always a new controversy.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.