IF YOUR TIME IS SHORT

Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner doesn’t select the U.S. women’s basketball teams for the Olympics.
Neither Caitlin Clark nor Angel Reese are eligible to play in the 3×3 or 5×5 Olympic basketball teams, according to CBS Sports.
Griner praised new WNBA rookies, including Reese and Clark.

A recent Threads post stirs the pot of discontent over basketball phenom Caitlin Clark’s exclusion from rosters for the U.S. women’s basketball teams for the upcoming Summer Olympics in Paris.

“Brittney Griner asked Angel Reese instead of Caitlin Clark to compete in the 3×3 Olympics after Cameron Brink suffered an injury,” the June 23 post said. “I think ‘Angel Reese is better than Caitlin Clark.’”

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

Griner, a center for the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury, is one of 12 players on the roster for the U.S. women’s 5×5 basketball team at the 2024 Olympics.

Cameron Brink, a forward for the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks, was one of four players named to the roster for the U.S. women’s 3×3 basketball team for the Olympics. But on June 18, she tore her ACL in her left knee during a game against the Connecticut Sun and will miss both the rest of her WNBA season and the Olympics.

She was replaced by another Los Angeles Sparks forward, Dearica Hamby.

Neither Clark, a guard for the WNBA’s Indiana Fever, nor Reese, a forward for the WNBA’s Chicago Sky, were named to either roster.

USA Basketball committees selected the rosters, and CBS Sports reported that “it’s not as simple as picking any player they want as there are specific rules regarding 3×3 eligibility.”

Clark and Reese couldn’t play on the 3×3 team even if the committee wanted them to, the outlet said.

“Despite being two of the biggest rising stars in the WNBA, neither Caitlin Clark nor Angel Reese are eligible,” CBS Sports said.

The four-player rosters for each country must feature two players ranked within the top 10 in their country, according to CBS Sports, and two players ranked within the top 50 in their country or have the minimum number of ranking points, which are calculated based on results in recent International Basketball Federation-endorsed events.

So, it would be unusual for Griner, an experienced player with more than a decade on the Mercury, to ask Reese to join the 3×3 team instead of Clark.

Neither Reese nor Clark are eligible, Griner isn’t on the 3×3 team, and she has no power to appoint someone to the team.

We found no evidence that she said this, or that she pronounced Reese better than Clark.

Rather, TMZ sports reported June 2 that Griner said about rookies Reese, Clark and Brink: “I think it’s amazing for women’s sports with these rookies — I think it’s amazing.”

We rate claims Griner asked Reese to replace Brink over Clark False.