The Caitlin Clark WNBA '11th-best guard' vote controversy, explained

Cory Woodroof, For The WinThu, July 9, 2026 at 8:06 PM UTC

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Did WNBA players actually vote Caitlin Clark as the 11th-best guard in the WNBA?

Hypothetically if you're just looking at raw data and how it's presented, yes, kind of, she was 11th in votes on a player voting list for the All-Star Game. In literal process of ranking multiple players on a long list? No.

The voting controversy of Clark being named 11th in player voting for the WNBA All-Star Game has gotten plenty of discourse since the voting tally was released. It's, understandably, caught a lot of people off-guard.

What actually happened? Clark is objectively not the 11th-best guard in the WNBA; she is much better than that. However, while the players' poll technically has Clark receiving the 11th-most votes at her position, there are more layers to the ordeal that at least adds clarification as to what exactly happened and what the vote actually reflects.

First, only 85 of 180 players in the WNBA actually voted in the poll, one where players are asked to vote for four guards and six frontcourt players. Clark got the 11th-most votes at the position from those who voted; keep in mind that Kelsey Plum (12th) and Jackie Young (14th) were ranked behind Clark on the list, too.

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So, essentially, Clark just didn't get as many votes as 10 other guards in the WNBA. Players do have biases and vote for their friends in the process, sure, and plenty of players apparently didn't vote at all. It's not a cumulative look at how the league views Clark as a player; the player tally is just not a great way to assess overall talent at any position.

It's not to say that the player voting tally is correct; Clark easily should have gotten more votes than she did, even from the limited sample of WNBA voters. That's more than fair to quibble with; however, the 11th-best conversation is missing a filter for how the vote actually works and what the results actually mean for how they're presented.

Clark was still, rightfully so, a WNBA All-Star starter and will have plenty more years ahead of her to be recognized by the league and her peers. This is a very weird optic to be sure, but it's not quite what it's being made out to be.

Who were the All-Star snubs?

Check out our list.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: The Caitlin Clark WNBA '11th-best guard' vote controversy, explained

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