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New head coach Kara Lawson is officially kicking off a new era for USA Basketball. For her first training camp since taking over the women’s national team, Lawson has called up 10 debutants, headlined by Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and JuJu Watkins. The camp will take place from Dec. 12–14 in Durham, North Carolina. Its main purpose is to evaluate talent as newly appointed USA women’s national team managing director Sue Bird begins building the roster for the 2026 FIBA World Cup. But there seems to be a problem for a few. When USA Basketball released its official training camp roster on X, Caitlin Clark’s photo was nowhere to be seen — and that didn’t sit well with journalist Christine Brennan, author of On Her Game: Caitlin Clark and the Revolution in Women’s Sports. “This is so interesting: if USA Basketball really wanted to go all out promoting WBB, bring new fans in and get unprecedented attention for a team that dropped in TV viewership at the Paris Olympics, they would have added the photo of one other player to this graphic. But no,” she said on X. (This is a developing news…) 

Journalist unhappy with Caitlin Clark’s latest treatment by USA Basketball ahead of Kara Lawson’s first training camp.

Akash Das is an NCAA and WNBA Writer at EssentiallySports, where his bylines dive deep into the structural side of basketball. With a postgraduate diploma in Mass Communication and a Master’s in Sports Business &amp; Management from the University of Liverpool, he grounds every feature in strong reporting fundamentals and academic rigor. His coverage tracks how coaching blueprints, roster construction, and roster moves, from the NCAA transfer portal to WNBA free agency, shape outcomes on the court.  

His sharp breakdowns at the WNBA desk earned him a spot in the outlet’s prestigious Journalistic Excellence Program, putting him among ES’ most trusted voices on basketball. Beyond box scores, Akash is driven by the bigger picture: how programs are built, maintained, and rebuilt in the NCAA pipeline, and how those systems intersect with the professional game.  

With experience across sports writing, research, and media strategy, he brings nuance to topics often overlooked in day-to-day highlights coverage. Whether examining the long-term vision behind a college program or the ripple effect of player mobility in the WNBA, Akash connects fans to the tactical and structural heart of the sport.

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Akash Das

Veteran Olympic Journalist Raises Red Flag Over Team USA’s Treatment of Caitlin
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Veteran Olympic Journalist Raises Red Flag Over Team USA’s Treatment of Caitlin Clark

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Veteran Olympic Journalist Raises Red Flag Over Team USA’s Treatment of Caitlin Clark - EssentiallySports

EssentiallySports is the home for the underserved fan, delivering storytelling that goes beyond the headlines. As a media platform, we combine deep audience insights with cultural trends, to meet fandom where it lives and where it goes next. Founded in 2014, EssentiallySports now engages with an audience of over 30m+ American sports fan on its website and 1m+ readers on its newsletters daily.

EssentiallySports

Akash Das is an NCAA and WNBA Writer at EssentiallySports, where his bylines dive deep into the structural side of basketball. With a postgraduate diploma in Mass Communication and a Master’s in Sports Business &amp; Management from the University of Liverpool, he grounds every feature in strong reporting fundamentals and academic rigor. His coverage tracks how coaching blueprints, roster construction, and roster moves, from the NCAA transfer portal to WNBA free agency, shape outcomes on the court. His sharp breakdowns at the WNBA desk earned him a spot in the outlet’s prestigious Journalistic Excellence Program, putting him among ES’ most trusted voices on basketball. Beyond box scores, Akash is driven by the bigger picture: how programs are built, maintained, and rebuilt in the NCAA pipeline, and how those systems intersect with the professional game. With experience across sports writing, research, and media strategy, he brings nuance to topics often overlooked in day-to-day highlights coverage. Whether examining the long-term vision behind a college program or the ripple effect of player mobility in the WNBA, Akash connects fans to the tactical and structural heart of the sport.