The true Caitlin Clark effect? She shoots from so far away, she's forcing the rest of the WNBA to adjust.

Boston Globe

14-07-2025

Clark had an obvious card in her back pocket.
'Why are you shooting so close to the line?' she asked. 'You've got to scoot back further.'
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Bird took a couple bounces, then stepped a couple feet inside the line
'Because back in my day,' Bird said. 'The line was around here.'
Indeed. When Bird came into the W in 2002, the 3-point line was 19 feet, 9 inches from the basket, and the average 3-point attempt was from 21 feet.
Clark was just a kid then, begging her father to dig up their lawn and pour cement in the driveway so she could extend her 3-point range, but the WNBA — and basketball as a whole — already was shifting.
Range was increasingly important, and shooters were increasingly comfortable and capable of pulling from distances that would've been hard to fathom when the league was born in 1997.
In 2004, the league pushed the line back to 20 feet, 6.25 inches, with the average shot following. In the 13 seasons since it adopted the international standard 22-foot, 1.75-inch line in 2013, it's continued moving out, to an average of 24.4 feet away this season.
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Clark's range remains in a class of its own. As a rookie, she took 355 3-pointers from an average of 26.7 feet from the basket. Injuries have interrupted her sophomore season, but in 10 games this year, she's taken 83 threes from an average of 27 feet.
As a whole, though, shooters are inching closer to the half-court logo no matter the league.
Connecticut's sharpshooter Marina Mabrey, Dallas Wings rookie Paige Bueckers, and the Los Angeles Sparks's Julie Vanloo all pull threes from an average of 25.6 feet.
New York Liberty star Sabrina Ionescu, who
'Obviously, year after year, you continue to see more talent in this league,' said Burton, who's making a run at Most Improved Player in a breakout season for the Golden State Valkyries. 'I think it's a testament to the talent in this league.'
Chicago Sky guard Ariel Atkins has never been shy about getting shots up, averaging 24.2 feet on 126 threes as a rookie in 2018. Eight seasons later, she's pulled 77 from 25.1.
'When those two feet hit,' teammate Angel Reese said, 'I know it's going up.'
As audacious as the shots seem, they serve a practical purpose.
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'The way that I'm being guarded, if I can just have more space and be able to knock that down, it gives our drivers more opportunities to attack and it gives more people more space to get into the lane,' Atkins said.
'If I'm there and my feet are set, honestly, it's going up. I don't get a lot of open shots. You don't see a lot of people helping off of me. So I try to keep the spacing. I don't necessarily know where my feet are at all the time, but if it's open, it's got to go up.'
Burton agreed.
'It provides better spacing when I'm deeper outside,' she said. 'Sometimes [defenses] push us out of the paint, they push us outside the 3-point line, so being able to knock those down is something I work on pretty consistently.'
Golden State's Veronica Burton is one of nine WNBA players whose 3-point attempts come from an average of at least 25 feet.
Scott Strazzante/Associated Press
For Vanloo, moving farther away almost was a necessity.
Her long-range shooting was no secret in the Turkish Women's Basketball Super League, where she had four games with seven made 3-pointers. When she arrived in the W last year and knocked down 72 of 220 long-range attempts, teams took notice, and catching around the 3-point line wasn't always an option.
'People know that I like to shoot and I'm a shooter,' Vanloo said. 'And I think that as the game just evolves, people just guard me as a shooter. That's how you know you've got to expand the range.'
She sees it as a part of the modern game.
'Watching the NBA, you watch guys like Stephen Curry play, you see how far they shoot the ball and you just kind of want to play the same way,' she said. 'You just practice it and it's kind of effortless, so why not?
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'I think that's why it's so important that these young girls, when they start playing basketball, they work on their shooting. Because if you can shoot, it just makes the game easier.'
For what it's worth, Sue Bird had range in her day. She came into the league shooting about 2 feet beyond the 19-9 3-point line, and was firing from 24.3 on average when she left in 2022.
Vanloo took a deep breath at the thought, almost unable to fathom shooting a three from inside 20 feet.
'I'd just make sure I'm behind the line,' she said. 'That's something you're never going to have with me, is a 2-pointer with my foot on the line.'
Julian Benbow can be reached at