If there is anyone who has known how special Caitlin Clark is for some time, it's her former coach at Iowa, Lisa Bluder. In an interview with The Athletic, Bluder shared a unique tool she used while trying to crack how best to guide Clark: Phil Jackson and Hugh Delahanty's 1995 book about coaching Michael Jordan, Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior.
Bluder had first read the book while coaching at Drake, she told the outlet, and her husband suggested she reread it. "The things that Michael Jordan had, that Phil had to help Michael with, were some of the same things that I feel like I had to help Caitlin with," she told The Athletic.
Those things included the way Clark puts a lot of pressure on herself and her team and also about how Jordan struggled to deal with criticism from the media. The book proved so helpful that she eventually started having Clark read parts of it that she thought were especially salient.
Lisa Bluder says Caitlin Clark didn't trust her teammates at first
One surprising admission Bluder also made was Clark didn't trust her teammates at Iowa at first — though the reason why she didn't trust them isn't quite as surprising. As Bluder put it, Clark didn't think her teammates were working as hard as she was, and it "took time" for her to build trust in them.
Jackson and Delahanty's book proved especially useful during a confrontation. Clark complained to her coach that her teammates weren't spending as much time in the gym as she thought they should. Bluder quickly asked if she had invited her teammates to the gym, a question Clark answered no to. The situation reminded Bluder of one Jackson wrote about, when Jordan doubted his teammates' abilities on the floor.
"The true measure of a really good player is the ability to make the people around you look good," Bluder told the Athletic. "As the best player, you have to make your team better."
Clark and Jordan have other similarities, too
Bluder drew other similarities between the two. Clark was on everyone's radar after she became the first Division I player to lead the country in points and assists per game as a sophomore, a reality that became more clear after she averaged 27.8 points as a junior and 31.6 during her senior year.
Bluder also taught Clark to speak about her teammates during press conferences, especially when she wasn't exactly in the mood to address the media herself. If you pay attention, that's something she continues to do now in the WNBA.