Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark and Chicago Sky rookie Angel Reese are longtime rivals and competitors, but it sounds like they both very much agree about how to feel regarding this year’s WNBA Rookie of the Year Award.
During their press conferences this week leading up to their matchup on Friday night, Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese both made it clear that they are not focused on the Rookie of the Year race. Instead, they’re just focused on helping their team.
“I think me and Angel would both give you the same answer. You don’t wake up and think about individual awards. I know that’s what all of you think we do,” Clark said. “That’s what everybody wants to make this about, but both of our teams are competing for playoff spots. That’s our main focus. That’s a selfish thing to just care about an individual award.”
“She would give you the same exact answer, I’m sure she has given you the same exact answer,” Clark said, referring to Reese. “Everyone can write that, but our focus is on winning basketball games. It’s as simple as that. It’s winning basketball games, and that was the same story when we were in college. If you’re playing basketball to win individual awards, no matter what level you’re at, then you’re doing it wrong. That’s not fun and that’s not being a good teammate.”
Reese did indeed give essentially the same answer as Clark when asked a similar question.
“We don’t either care about the Rookie of the Year,” Reese said. “I think you guys have made it a big thing. We haven’t. So just continue to work within our team. We both wanna win; we’ve been wanting to win, and that’s what we’ve done in our collegiate career… So we’re just trying to do whatever it takes to win and that’s what’s important right now.”
They might not care about the award right now, but it’s clear that the race has come down to the two of them.
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