A (Very Debatable) Best of 2024 List

Caitlin Clark, Steph Curry's 'Nuit Nuit' in Paris, Saquon's back flip and an unnamed college football champion make one columnist's highlights of the year

- JASON GAY

Picking a Best of Sports list is a fraught, mostly useless exercise no one's going to be totally satisfied, or even part satisfied. I'm ready for all your angry emails, just promise to bleep out all the curse words.

I do think we can agree on one selection. In all the time (14 centuries!) I've been pecking out this harried chicken scratch of a sports column, it's never been easier to pick an athlete of the year.

In 2024, it's Caitlin Clark, and it's not especially close.

Crazy to think of how much this 22-year-old Iowan bequeathed upon the game in 12 months: Finishing a transformative record-breaking career for women's college basketball, in which the interest and television ratings eclipsed those for college men (no hyperbole, it happened), and immediately launching into a groundbreaking season in the WNBA, a league which has historically struggled for buzz and mindshare.

Was Clark the only reason for the shift? No, but she was the straw that stirred this drink, and it's silly to suggest otherwise. No player's mere arrival has single-handedly made teams switch arenas-but that was the Clark effect, as the demand to see her in action scrambled Clark's road opponents to shift their games to bigger stadiums, which immediately sold out.

Such popularity made Clark a lightning rod, naturally, and we got extended, wearying debates about her fame, talent and treatment as a professional. Fortunately, there was an elixir: watching Clark play basketball. She's indeed a generational talent, a gifted shooter with a passing vision beyond her years, with the humility to know she needs to keep getting better. If you ever wondered if you would see a Tiger Woods moment again, it's here. It's Clark.

'Nuit Nuit' in Paris