If you’ve spent time on social media or perusing sports content over the last few days, you’ve 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.

And lord knows, people have had opinions about that piece of information.

But is it actually true? And if not, what’s happening here?

This looks like a job for facts and logic, so let’s break it down.

Is Caitlin Clark an All-Star? 

Yes, Clark was named a starter, along with other stars such as Aliyah Boston, Paige Bueckers, Natasha Howard, Breanna Stewart, and A’ja Wilson.

Okay, so the players voted for her?

Well, kinda. See, the All-Star starters are decided by a split vote between fans (50%), media members (25%), and players (25%).

Do we know how the players voted?

Well, we know how 47% of the players voted.

Huh?

Due to various issues, only around 85 of the WNBA’s 180 players submitted ballots for starters, according to ESPN. Apparently, many players simply never received their ballots in time.

Weird. Okay. So the 85-or-so players who voted said Clark was the 11th-best player in the league?

No.

But wait, all the reports say she came in 11th.

It’s 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.

Voting results for 2026 All-Star starters: pic.twitter.com/ztrznAUkAF

— Underdog WNBA (@UnderdogWNBA) July 2, 2026

Okay, so what’s the issue?

That’s an oversimplification of what the player vote actually was.

In what way? 

Per reports, the WNBA players were asked to vote 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’s just where her total ended up.

Don’t you think Clark deserved to be higher?

Almost certainly. She’s averaging 20.5 points (5th overall), 7.9 assists (2nd overall), and 4.0 rebounds per game, and she’s the league’s most popular player. But for all we know, she would have been fifth or sixth on many player ballots; they just weren’t given the opportunity to vote for that many guards.

It’s 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.

There’s a larger conversation to be had about how other WNBA players feel about Clark, but this doesn’t seem to be the accurate representation it’s being taken as.

So when a pundit chastises WNBA players for saying that Caitlin Clark is the11th-best guard in the league, are they wrong?

It would be inaccurate 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 beforehand to better understand the context.

So, really, what happened here is that a very flawed voting system led to a likely skewed result that didn’t really paint a full picture of how WNBA players feel as a whole?

That sounds about right.

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’t realize would become such a big deal?

Yup.

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? 

Honestly, we’re just as stumped as you are. We’d say you should ask Cathy Englebert, but we’re not sure she’ll show up to answer you.

The post Explaining the Caitlin Clark ’11th-best guard’ WNBA player vote controversy appeared first on Awful Announcing.