Lisa Leslie has reopened one of the sharpest debates around U.S. women’s basketball, saying on 's "First Take" that she does not "know how we left the country without her" when Caitlin Clark was left off the 2024 Olympic roster. Clark was not on the National Team that traveled to Paris for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, a call made by Cheryl Reeve, and Team USA went on to win gold anyway.
The gold medal dulled some of the immediate heat at the time, even if the championship game against France was tighter than many expected. But Leslie’s comments have put the decision back in the spotlight, because Clark’s rise since then has only widened the gap between the player many fans wanted to see in Paris and the roster that was actually sent.
That gap matters because the discussion is no longer about a hypothetical rookie learning the pro game. Clark was brand new to the league when the Olympic roster was set, and she was coming off her collegiate season, two facts that shaped how the decision was viewed then. The controversy over her omission did not get much airtime until Leslie raised it recently, which is part of why her remarks landed so hard.
Clark has since started to answer the international question on the court. She made her senior debut for Team USA in late 2025 as part of a training camp roster, then joined the team in Puerto Rico in 2026, where the Americans won the tournament and Clark was named MVP. Clark said she was a little nervous about how the games would go in Puerto Rico, but the performance gave Team USA another reason to imagine her in the mix for the next Olympics.
That is where the story now turns. The question of whether Clark should represent Team USA at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles is going to be a major one in the coming months, and Leslie’s remarks have ensured the old Paris omission will not stay buried. What once looked like a one-time roster call is now part of a much bigger argument about how Team USA defines its future.
