Caitlin Clark’s rest during Olympic break looks like bad news for rest of WNBA

After a month off to accommodate the Olympics schedule, the WNBA season is back in full swing. Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever returned to action Friday night by hosting the Phoenix Mercury. The league couldn't have hand-picked a better matchup to get us back in the swing of things.

The Mercury, of course, employ Diana Taurasi, who raised eyebrows before the season with what was perceived as criticism of Caitlin Clark. She essentially said that dominating the college ranks is one thing, but the WNBA is a different beast (objectively true, but the Clark discourse gets weird sometimes).

Taurasi has earned the right to say whatever she wants, but these comments put a natural target on her back for those migrating to the WNBA fandom along with Clark. The Fever rookie sure put on a show in Friday's game, dropping 29 points on 8-of-16 shooting (4-of-11 from deep), five rebounds, and 10 assists in a 98-89 victory.

This was Clark's ninth game with at least 20 points, five boards, and five assists. That is the second most all-time in a WNBA season... and she's a rookie. It took Clark a few weeks to get her footing this year. Just imagine what happens once Clark is firing on all cylinders out of the gate.

We are witnessing the early stages of history, folks.

Caitlin Clark detonates in Fever's first game after Olympics break

The women's national team won gold at the Olympics in Paris, as we all expected. It's not uncommon for the U.S. to dominate certain categories in the quadrennial games, but few individual athletes or teams have been more thorough in their excellence than the women's basketball squad. This marks eight straight gold medals for Team USA.

Unfortunately, we cannot simply celebrate the greatness on display from some of the game's best athletes. There was an offshoot of discourse about Clark's absence from the team. The roster was finalized before Clark took off into the stratosphere with Indiana, but a couple weeks ago, Dawn Staley appeared to hint that Clark should've been on the roster.

Mistakes happen. It's hardly egregious to leave a rookie off of Team USA, but Clark's shooting dynamism and playmaking have reached a certain level of undeniability. Few players can elevate teammates like Clark. She's not just an individual dynamo. She is actively setting up Aliyah Boston in pick-and-roll actions and spraying passes to Indy's myriad shooters.

If anybody can appreciate Clark's unique skill set, it is Indiana Pacers All-Star and fellow U.S. gold medalist Tyrese Haliburton. Their skill sets are similar, to a certain extent, and Haliburton was in the building for Friday's showcase.

He is putting the league and the basketball fandom at large on notice.

Clark traversed the Olympic firestorm with impressive maturity. She handled the "snub" with grace and let her on-court achievements tell the story. Now that she's done signing babies and is back on the basketball court for the Fever's stretch run, the rest of the WNBA should probably take note. Clark is officially the focal point of every opposing game plan. It will probably remain that way for the next decade.