Is Team USA’s Most Dangerous Lineup Sitting on the Bench?

Is Team USA’s Most Dangerous Lineup Sitting on the Bench?

I kept noticing it.

It happened against China. I noticed it again against Italy. Then Czechia. Then Hungary. By Saturday’s World Cup semifinal against Spain, I wasn’t wondering whether I was imagining it anymore. I was watching the box score almost as closely as I was watching the game.

Team USA would go to its bench, Caitlin Clark would enter, Aliyah Boston would get involved, Paige Bueckers would start pushing the action, and something about the game would change. The pace picked up. The floor seemed to open. Defensively, the group created problems. And more often than not, the scoreboard started moving in America’s direction.

This isn’t an argument that Team USA’s starters aren’t good enough. Come on. We’re talking about Breanna Stewart, Napheesa Collier, Chelsea Gray, Jackie Young and Kahleah Copper. There are championships, MVPs, Olympic gold medals and a ridiculous amount of basketball on that résumé. Team USA is headed to its fifth consecutive World Cup Final, so Kara Lawson certainly doesn’t need me sitting in Iowa telling her how to coach basketball. FIBA itself noted before Saturday’s semifinal that the Americans were getting nearly 49 points per game from their bench.

But I do have a question.

What does this second unit have to do to earn the right to stay on the floor when it’s working?

Saturday made that question awfully difficult to ignore.

Spain gave the United States everything it wanted for three quarters. The game was tied at 58 heading into the fourth, and this wasn’t the Team USA demolition we had watched against Hungary. This was uncomfortable. This was a semifinal. One bad stretch could send you home.

And yet, every time I looked at the numbers, the same thing was staring back at me.

At one point in the fourth quarter, with USA finally beginning to create some separation, Clark was +14. Boston was +17. Clark had scored exactly one point.

Read that last sentence again.

One point. And Team USA had outscored Spain by 14 during her minutes on the floor.

By the final buzzer, Boston had finished +21 in 20 minutes. Clark finished +16 in less than 17 minutes despite going 0-for-3 from the field. Bueckers finished +7. Meanwhile, two USA starters finished the game in negative territory.

Now, before anybody starts firing off an angry comment, I know what plus-minus is — and what it isn’t. It is not gospel. It doesn’t tell us that Clark personally created 16 points or Boston created 21. Players share the floor. Matchups change. Bench players frequently play against other bench players. There are a hundred things happening in a basketball game that one column in a box score cannot explain.

But here’s the problem.

This didn’t start Saturday.

And that's where this story gets really interesting.

The Pattern Was Already There

Clark’s World Cup began against China with the kind of performance everyone expected eventually: 14 points, 11 assists, and a +30 in her first World Cup game. Team USA won by 33.

Then came Italy, and this is where the numbers started getting my attention. Clark couldn’t buy a basket. She went 0-for-6 from the field, missed all four of her three-point attempts, and scored just one point. It was about as rough an offensive night as you’ll see from Caitlin Clark.

She still finished +6 in a game Team USA won by only three points.

Against Czechia, Clark had nine points and seven assists. +22. Against Hungary, 10 points and nine assists. +36. And then came Saturday against Spain: one point, 0-for-3 from the field... +16.

Add it all together, and Clark is now +110 through five World Cup games.

That number doesn't tell us Clark has played perfect basketball. Far from it. Her shot hasn't consistently fallen in Berlin, and there have been turnovers and possessions she'd probably love to have back. But that's exactly what makes +110 so fascinating. If she were averaging 25 points and burying six threes every night, we wouldn't need to look very hard for an explanation.

She isn't.

And Team USA keeps winning her minutes anyway.

That brings us to something I think we've lost sight of while talking about Caitlin Clark over the last few years.

The Caitlin Clark Effect Started on a Basketball Court

We use the phrase “Caitlin Clark Effect” for everything now. Television ratings. Attendance records. Merchandise sales. Sold-out arenas. Charter flights. Little girls wearing No. 22 jerseys. There is an entire economic and cultural phenomenon attached to those three words.

But before any of that, the Caitlin Clark Effect was a basketball problem for the other team.

Clark can miss three straight shots, and you still can't stop guarding her at 27 feet. A defender still has to meet her earlier than she'd meet almost anybody else. Help still has to shade toward her. A big still has to think about how far she's willing to come out when Clark turns the corner off a screen. And every extra step a defense takes toward Clark creates another foot of space somewhere else.

Then there is the pace. The outlet passes. The ball moving before a defense gets set. The passes that lead to the pass that becomes the assist. And, quietly, Clark has played some pretty darn good defense in this tournament, too. She's been active in passing lanes, competing and creating possessions without needing the ball in her hands.

None of those things require her three-pointer to go through the net.

Maybe the most interesting Caitlin Clark Effect at this World Cup is the original one — the one happening on the hardwood.

And It Isn’t Just Clark

If this were only a Caitlin Clark statistic, I’d be much more hesitant to make anything of it. But Saturday against Spain gave us an even more striking example standing right next to her.

Aliyah Boston finished +21 in 20:33. She had six points and seven rebounds, and Team USA was 21 points better than Spain during her minutes in a game it won by 10.

Think about that for a second. USA played 40 minutes of basketball and won by 10. Boston played roughly half of those minutes, and the Americans were +21 with her on the floor.

Paige Bueckers finished +7. Rhyne Howard was +3. Angel Reese was +1. Every USA bench player who actually entered the game finished on the positive side of plus-minus.

And this is where Saturday became almost comical to watch if you were following the live box score.

At halftime, every Team USA starter was in negative territory. Every bench player who had played was positive. Spain was hanging around, USA couldn't create separation, and yet the group coming off the bench was consistently winning its minutes.

The game was still tied at 58 after three quarters. The pattern was still there.

Eventually Stewart and Young helped turn their numbers around during the fourth-quarter push, and Stewart was terrific when USA needed her. That's important. This isn't about pretending the veterans didn't contribute to the win. They absolutely did.

It's about recognizing that Team USA may possess something most countries in the world simply cannot counter: a second wave that doesn't feel anything like a second unit. Clark, Boston, Bueckers, Howard, and Reese represent an absurd collection of talent to bring off a bench.

Maybe “bench” isn't even the right way to think about them anymore.

So What Are We Waiting For?

I understand why a coach trusts veterans in a World Cup semifinal. I understand why Stewart, Collier, Gray, Young, and Copper get the benefit of the doubt. They've earned it over years of playing basketball at the highest level.

But there is a difference between trusting experience and being trapped by it.

A basketball game shouldn't be dictated by a predetermined substitution chart. When five players are changing the game in front of you, sometimes the best coaching decision is also the simplest one: leave them out there.

I'm not even arguing that Clark, Boston or Bueckers need to start Sunday's World Cup Final. At this point, I'm not sure starting is the important part of this conversation.

I care much more about who gets to finish.

If Team USA's second unit checks into the championship game and once again starts creating separation, pushing the pace and making life miserable for the opponent, what exactly do they have to do to earn another two minutes? Another four? The rest of the quarter?

At what point does the performance on the floor become more important than the rotation that was written down before the game?

That's the question five games have left me asking.

And on Sunday, there is no next round.

One Game Left

There is a temptation in basketball — especially international basketball — to believe experience should always win the argument. Veterans have been there before. They've played in these moments. They've earned the trust of their coaches.

I get it.

But the best teams in sports also recognize when the next wave has arrived. Nobody told LeBron James he needed to wait until he was 25 before an NBA team could put the ball in his hands. Young talent doesn't become more useful simply because the calendar turns another year. When a player is ready, she's ready.

And Team USA has some young players who look awfully ready.

That doesn't diminish what Breanna Stewart and the veterans have accomplished. Stewart was tremendous Saturday, leading USA with 16 points and helping close the door on Spain. Kahleah Copper added 13. Jackie Young scored 12. When the semifinal had to be won, the veterans absolutely played their part.

And Kara Lawson deserves credit, too. Her team is undefeated and headed to the World Cup Final. It's hard to argue with results when the result is a chance to play for a gold medal.

But good results shouldn't prevent us from asking whether something even better is sitting right in front of us.

Through five games, Clark is +110. Boston was +21 Saturday. We've watched Bueckers provide instant offense, Howard create havoc defensively, and Reese bring energy and rebounding. We've watched combinations of this group change games over and over again.

Maybe Sunday’s championship game is decided by Stewart. Maybe Collier takes over. Maybe one of America’s decorated veterans reminds everybody exactly why she has been trusted with these moments for so long. There’s a very good chance Team USA will need that experience to win a world championship.

But if that second unit gets rolling again — if Clark starts pushing the pace, Boston controls the paint, Bueckers gets downhill, Howard creates havoc, and Reese attacks the glass — please, Coach, don’t look at the substitution chart. Look at the scoreboard.

After five games, I don’t think the question is whether these young stars are ready for the moment anymore. They’ve answered that question repeatedly when given the opportunity.

The question now is whether Team USA is willing to let them own it.

And if they start cooking again Sunday?

Let the kids cook. 🇺🇸