Caitlin Clark hits Team USA training camp as 2028 Olympic cycle begins

Caitlin Clark is back on the floor and healthy, playing basketball with Team USA last week. It was her first formal five-on-five basketball since mid-July, and I wrote about her health and recovery here.

It's a significant story in sports in general that one of the biggest stars on the planet is playing again. For the Indiana Fever, who were on the doorstep of reaching the WNBA Finals despite not having Clark in the postseason, it's tremendous news. Her health next season will be a priority, and if she's available for the 2026 postseason the Fever should be a title contender.

The other story from Clark's time with the red, white, and blue was exactly that – her return to the national stage. She was one of the 17 players invited to Durham, North Carolina to be a part of USA Basketball Women's National Team Training Camp.

It wasn't every player who will be in the mix for future Olympic spots with Team USA, but it was most of the young stars you should expect to be in that mix. Clark and Fever teammate Aliyah Boston are among that group. So are Lauren Betts, Cameron Brink, Paige Bueckers, Veronica Burton, Sonia Citron, Kiki Iriafen, Rickea Jackson, Angel Reese and JuJu Watkins. All of the players listed in this paragraph, with the exception of Boston, made their senior national team camp debuts last week.

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"I think anytime you can do a USA Basketball related camp... This is the biggest honor you can possibly have playing basketball in our country is wearing USA across your chest," Clark shared. "I'm just excited to be here and honored... surrounded by a lot of really great players. Some that haven't played in an Olympics before and then others that have a medal or multiple medals. So I think it's been a fun group to be around."

The new era of USA Women's Basketball is coming, and Clark will be one of the faces of it. This is the start of an Olympic cycle, with the next games coming in 2028 and being held in Los Angeles. Team USA has won the gold medal in Women's Basketball every year since 1992, though they were tested in the most recent Olympics – they beat France by just one point in the title game.

That roster was extremely talented and got it done. It was, however, a group that won't exactly be young when the next Olympics arrives. Jackie Young and Sabrina Ionescu were 26 during the 2024 games. Napheesa Collier and A'ja Wilson were 27. Every other participant was at least 29, meaning they will almost all be 33+ at the time of the LA-hosted event in three years.

Team USA will mix in some of the next era of great players for 2028, of which Clark is obviously one. This was the first chance for many of the best players representing that era to share the court. Betts, Brink, Bueckers, Citron, Clark, Iriafen, Jackson, Reese and Watkins are all 24 or younger.

"I think a lot of us have familiarity, whether we were playing on Junior national teams together or whether we played versus each other in college or obviously playing now versus each other in WNBA or some of us obviously are teammates as well," Clark said of the new-look bunch. "We know each other pretty well."

Clark called coming together for national team experience a thing of comfort, but also something that lights a competitive fire. Many of the players present at the USA camp last week had not played since the end of the WNBA season, which for some was over three months ago.

Kara Lawson, the head coach for the Duke Blue Devils women's basketball team, is guiding Team USA. The assistant coaches for this camp were Natalie Nakase, Nate Tibbetts, and Fever head coach Stephanie White. The managing director is Sue Bird, and Bird will evaluate players prior to naming a team for the 2026 FIBA Women’s World Cup next September. Team USA has won that event four times in a row.

"She knows just as good as anybody else what USA Basketball is all about," Clark said of Lawson. "This is really my first time around Coach Kara as well. I don't have a prior relationship with her, so obviously it's been good to get to know her over the course of those first few days. But I think for myself, it's just the energy and the competitive spirit that she brings as a coach. I think that really impacts players and what they want to bring on the court as well."

Camp wrapped up for Clark and company on Sunday, good timing with Unrivaled starting for many of the participants this week – including Boston. Team USA will resume play next March for World Cup qualifying play.

Team USA sent a stacked roster to the 2022 qualifiers, one that included Fever star Kelsey Mitchell. So perhaps Clark could be involved again and donning the red, white, and blue in just a few months. She is finally healthy, after all.

"I feel like when I touched the basketball to start warming up before the practice even started, that's probably when I felt pretty comfortable," she said of recovering and things feeling normal again. "Like, I really did kind of feel like myself out there and just continue to get my lungs back. But I felt like I was moving really well, so it was pretty satisfying."

Thank you for reading. The world of the Fever has been quiet since the WNBA season ended, with CBA talks (rightly) dominating the conversations of late. This website will be filled with Fever stories and reporting when there is a new CBA, new rules, and more stories to tell. Sign up below to have them all emailed directly to you.