If you\u2019ve spent time on social media or perusing sports content over the last few days, you\u2019ve no doubt come across the surprising news that WNBA players voted Caitlin Clark the 11th-best guard in the league heading into the WNBA All-Star Game.<\/p>\n
And lord knows, people have had opinions about that piece of information.<\/p>\n
But is it actually true? And if not, what\u2019s happening here?<\/p>\n
This looks like a job for facts and logic, so let\u2019s break it down.<\/p>\n
Is Caitlin Clark an All-Star?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yes, Clark was named<\/a>\u00a0a starter, along with other stars such as\u00a0Aliyah Boston,\u00a0Paige Bueckers, Natasha Howard, Breanna Stewart, and\u00a0A\u2019ja Wilson.<\/p>\n Okay, so the players voted for her?<\/p>\n Well, kinda. See, the All-Star starters are decided by a split vote between fans (50%), media members (25%), and players (25%).<\/p>\n Do we know how the players voted?<\/p>\n Well, we know how 47% of the players voted.<\/p>\n Huh?<\/p>\n Due to various issues, only around 85 of the WNBA\u2019s 180 players submitted ballots for starters, according to ESPN<\/a>. Apparently, many players simply never received their ballots in time.<\/p>\n Weird. Okay. So the 85-or-so players who voted said Clark was the 11th-best player in the league?<\/p>\n No.<\/p>\n But wait, all the reports say she came in 11th.<\/p>\n It\u2019s true that the vote reportedly had Clark finish No. 2 in the fan vote, No. 3 in the media vote, and No. 11 in the player vote for guards.<\/p>\n Voting results for 2026 All-Star starters: pic.twitter.com\/ztrznAUkAF<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Underdog WNBA (@UnderdogWNBA) July 2, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n Okay, so what\u2019s the issue?<\/p>\n That\u2019s an oversimplification of what the player vote actually was.<\/p>\n In what way?\u00a0<\/p>\n Per reports, the WNBA players were asked to vote<\/a> for four guards and six frontcourt players. So when it came to guards, they only cast votes for their personal top-four picks. After all the votes were tallied, there was an overall ranking based on how many votes each guard received, but no one offered a ranking to the point of putting Clark 11th. She probably received votes in various top-four spots on some ballots but was left off others, as were many other elite WNBA guards. 11th is not a vote she received; it\u2019s just where her total ended up.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t you think Clark deserved to be higher?<\/p>\n Almost certainly. She\u2019s averaging 20.5 points (5th overall), 7.9 assists (2nd overall), and 4.0 rebounds per game, and she\u2019s the league\u2019s most popular player. But for all we know, she would have been fifth or sixth on many player ballots; they just weren\u2019t given the opportunity to vote for that many guards.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also been said that many players likely voted for teammates or friends, which could have brought down the totals of Clark and others, especially considering it was probably a foregone conclusion that players like her would get the fan and media votes.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a larger conversation to be had about how other WNBA players feel about Clark<\/a>, but this doesn\u2019t seem to be the accurate representation it\u2019s being taken as.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n So when a pundit chastises WNBA players for saying that Caitlin Clark is the<\/a> 11th-best guard in the league<\/a>, are they wrong?<\/p>\n It would be inaccurate<\/a> to say that WNBA players voted Clark the 11th-best guard, but the information was also poorly presented to imply they had. So, on the one hand, we can understand why a talking head or hot-take artist would see that information and want to discuss it at face value, but they probably should have done their due diligence<\/a> beforehand to better understand the context.<\/p>\n So, really, what happened here is that a very flawed voting system led to a likely skewed result that didn\u2019t really paint a full picture of how WNBA players feel as a whole?<\/p>\n That sounds about right.<\/p>\n And this is the latest in a long line of WNBA own goals that they could have easily avoided but, for whatever reason, chose to try to power through or, even worse, didn\u2019t realize would become such a big deal?<\/p>\n Yup.<\/p>\n Why does the WNBA keep stepping in it so badly, especially when there are so many bad-faith commenters out there who love nothing more than excoriating them over the perceived treatment of Clark, making that the overarching narrative people focus on?\u00a0<\/p>\n Honestly, we\u2019re just as stumped as you are. We\u2019d say you should ask Cathy Englebert, but we\u2019re not sure she\u2019ll show up to answer you<\/a>.<\/p>\n \t