Iowa's Caitlin Clark is slated to be the No. 1 pick of the Indiana Fever in next month's WNBA Draft. However, another offer is now on the table.
The BIG3, the professional three-on-three summer basketball league, has offered Clark a multi-million-dollar deal to play in the 2024 season. BIG3 founder Ice Cube confirmed the offer was real on X.
A BIG3 official confirmed with CBS Sports the offer would consist of eight regular season games and two potential playoff games should her team qualify. The offer will also allow for Clark to play in the WNBA, which is holding its annual draft on April 15. The WNBA season starts on May 14.
If Clark accepts the BIG3's offer, she'd be the first woman to play in the league since its inception in 2017. Only two of the Fever's regular-season games could potentially have a conflict with the BIG3 schedule. Of course, there is also the matter of the Olympics. That team has not been named, but one might expect playing for a gold medal to be on Clark's bucket list as well. The Paris Games will run from July 26 to Aug. 11, so that's a minimum of three-week conflict right there.
"We intended the offer to remain private while Caitlin Clark plays for the [NCAA] championship. But I won't deny what's now already out there: BIG3 made a historic offer to Caitlin Clark," Ice Cube told CBS Sports in a statement. "Why wouldn't we? Caitlin is a generational athlete who can achieve tremendous success in the BIG3. The skeptics laughed when we made Nancy Lieberman the first female coach of a men's pro team, and she won the championship in her first year. Then Lisa Leslie won it all in year two. With our offer, Caitlin Clark can make history and break down even more barriers for women athletes."
Ice Cube also has taken a strong stance on WNBA players having to go play overseas while the WNBA is in its offseason.
"America's women athletes should not be forced to spend their off seasons playing in often dismal and dubious foreign countries just to make ends meet," Ice Cube added. "And they should have more than just one professional option in the U.S. at a time when American pro sports leagues are being infiltrated by autocratic, anti-women regimes ... Our pathbreaking offer to Caitlin Clark demonstrates that BIG3 now offers another choice for athletes."
Clark is one of the most heralded players that women's basketball has ever seen. She's currently compiling a historic season as she has set NCAA scoring records in recent weeks. Clark owns both the Division I career and single-season scoring marks, and is averaging 31.8 points, 8.8 assists, and 7.3 rebounds while shooting 37.9% from beyond the arc on the season.
Clark (32 points, eight rebounds, three assists) led Iowa to a 64-54 win against No. 8 seed West Virginia in the Round of 32 in the NCAA Women's Tournament, which got underway last week. The top-seeded Hawkeyes will play No. 5 seed Colorado on Saturday in the Sweet 16 in the Albany 2 Regional in New York.
