Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever finally got a much-needed breather after playing eleven games in twenty days. In their first game back from a four-day break, Clark tied a rookie record with seven 3-pointers in a win over Washington on Friday. It was the best all-round shooting performance of her short career.
Mental and physical exhaustion plagued the Fever (3-10) through a packed slate of games played an average of every 1.8 days, including two back-to-backs with overnight stays. According to ESPN Stats and Information, such a grueling stretch has occurred only once in the WNBA, dating back to 2007. The 2011 Washington Mystics went 1-10 during a 20-day stretch near the end of a season that began when team fielded four rookies.
Fever assistant coach Karima Christmas-Kelly was one of those rookies.
“You’re just trying to find your way in the league, but you also have to play games and figure it out that way,” Christmas-Kelly told Yahoo Sports. “I think that kind of correlates with the young team we’ve had and having to figure out a lot of these games early, especially against some high-caliber teams in New York and Connecticut within those 11 games in 20 days. .”
The ’11 Mystics, who tied for the second-best record in 2010, were already struggling at 5-17 when they hit that brutal stretch in late August and early September. It included one homestand and a unique victory in the ninth game. The Mystics finished 6-28, slightly better than the Tulsa Shock (3-31).
Injuries plagued that team and first-year head coach Trudi Lacey leaned heavily on Crystal Langhorne without the availability of All-Stars Monique Currie (knee) and Alana Beard (foot). Young talent had to “learn on the fly,” Christmas-Kelly said. Rookies Victoria Dunlap, the Mystics’ No. 11 overall pick, and Jasmine Thomas, the Storm’s No. 12 pick who was traded to Washington in a five-team deal in April, earned starts.
Ta’Shia Phillips, the Dream’s first-round draft pick who was packaged in a trade for 2007 No. 1 overall pick Lindsey Harding, left Washington’s bench for 10 games. Christmas-Kelly, the Mystics’ No. 23 pick, played in 14 games off the bench, averaging 3.4 points in 10.1 minutes per game.
But Lacey and the front office wanted a veteran presence and waived Phillips and Christmas-Kelly in July to sign DeMya Walker. The Liberty picked up Phillips, an Indianapolis native, for five games that concluded her WNBA career.
The Shock signed Christmas-Kelly and the following year traded her midseason to Indiana, where she won the 2012 championship. It is the franchise’s only title in its history.
Christmas-Kelly said that because freshmen are still in the “gameplay mode” of college, they didn’t hit a wall in her freshman year. The W season started on June 4, 2011, a month earlier than the 2024 turnaround for Clark and her rookie class.
“It was just kind of a translation of your game to how your role naturally changes when you get into the league,” Christmas-Kelly said. “Not everyone has the same role. I think you just try to figure out what that is for you and maximize that as quickly as possible when you get into the league.”
Her experience leaning on veterans early in her career for “words of wisdom” as they assisted from the bench helped her navigate the rest of her 10-year playing career, she said. After injuries limited her from 2018 to 2020, she officially retired and joined head coach Christie Sides’ staff in January 2023.
Indiana could not string together the victories from the break and fell to the Sun for the third time this season on Monday, 89-72. The starters rode the bench for most of the fourth, which was a 28-point deficit. After the loss, Christmas-Kelly said she saw small improvements on defense, but she is still looking for the team-wide shift of players seeing the game before it unfolds and getting to their defensive positions.
The Fever are the worst defensive team in the league, trailing the 11th-ranked Sparks by nearly 10 points in defensive rating. Their net rating of minus 15.8 is well behind the Mystics’ minus 8.6. Clark alone cannot make up for those shortfalls. But it’s a small sample size against the league’s best teams, and the upcoming schedule will reveal more about the Fever.
It’s a chance for the Fever to make up ground. They play five games over the next 11 days against the Dream (5-5), Sky (4-6) and Mystics (1-12). Those teams, along with the Sparks (4-8), were always the ones expected to compete for the final playoff spots.
Christmas-Kelly does not necessarily regard the confrontation with the teams at the bottom of the rankings as a sigh of relief.
“You can’t just assume you’re going to catch them on a bad night or they won’t be as intense as these other teams,” she said. “Everyone wants to win. They’re trying to get to the playoffs and be better than last season, so we can’t take any team lightly. That’s what we try to preach to them: every opponent is a valid opponent and we should approach him the same way. Top teams, mid-level teams or whoever, we have to be able to stand up for ourselves early and often.”
Caitlin Teller
We’re tracking Clark’s numbers compared to Candace Parker, the only WNBA rookie to be named league MVP.
Seasonal averages: Points (FG%/3FG%/FT%), rebounds, assists (turnovers), steals, blocks
Advanced statistics: Player Efficiency Rating, Offensive/Defensive Rating (via Her Hoop Stats), Real Shooting Percentage, Win Shares Per 40, Plus/Minus
Caitlin Clark
Seasonal averages: 16.3 PPG (37.3/33/89.7), 4.9 RPG, 6 APG (5.4 TOV), 1.5 SPG, 0.8 BPG
Advanced (up to 13 games): 15.7 PRESS; 93.8/110.7 O/DRTG; 55.3TS%; 0.01 WS; -10.5 +/-
Totals up to and including 13 matches: 212 PTS (62-166/36-109/52-58), 64 REB, 78 AST (70 TOV), 19 STL, 11 BLK
Notable rankings in the competition: Clark remains in the top 10 in many offensive totals because she has played more games than almost any other player. She ranks fourth in assists per game behind Alyssa Thomas (8.5), Natasha Cloud (7.6) and Jackie Young (7.0), and sixth in assist percentage (33.2). But ranks ninth in assists per 40 minutes (7.4).
She ranks 15th in scoring, 31st in rebounds, 18th in steals and 21st in blocks entering Tuesday night’s games. Her 27.7% usage rate remains in the top 10 and she leads the league in free throws at 32.1%.
Candace Parker
Seasonal averages: 18.5 PTS (52.3/42.3/73.3), 9.5 REB, 3.4 AST (2.8TOV), 1.3 STL, 2.3 BLK
Advanced (all season): 27.4 PRESS; 112.5/88.4 O/DRTG; 58.2TS%; 0.24 WS; 3.5 +/-
Totals up to and including 13 matches: 223 PTS (83-176/6-12/51-74), 126 REB, 53 AST (33 TOV), 23 STL, 30 BLK
Notable league rankings (full season): Parker led the league as a rookie, finishing fifth in scoring and 17th in assists per game. These remain among the best figures of her career. Its advanced metrics ranked in the top five across the board, with the exception of its 11th-best offensive rating. In August she was named Player of the Week once.
Caitlin Clark and Sabrina Ionescu on similar journeys
Every few weeks we compare Clark to another rookie in history, based on one statistical category comparison.
Clark remains tied with Sabrina Ionescu, New York’s No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 WNBA Draft. The rookie joined Parker and Ionescu as the only players in WNBA history with at least 100 points, 30 rebounds and 30 assists in their first six career games. Clark and Ionescu are the only players in WNBA history with at least 150 points, 50 rebounds and 50 assists in their first 10 career games.
But Clark is the only real rookie to do it. Ionescu suffered a grade 3 ankle sprain in her third game and did not play again her rookie season. It gave her a full year to rehabilitate while also working on her body and nutrition in preparation for the physical play of the WNBA. Seven of those 10 games were played with that advantage in her second season. Ionescu had 179 points, 75 rebounds and 79 assists through her first 13 games.
Clark and Ionescu each took women’s basketball to new heights while setting offensive records. Ionescu is the triple-double queen of Clark’s logo-3 scoring kingdom and is the only 2K-1K-1K player in NCAA Division I history (Clark was 10 rebounds short). That attacking threat meant she was also the defensive focus while leading the worst team in the league. Because of her injury, fans didn’t see how the rest of the season would have played out and whether she would have faced the same difficulties as Clark in the first month.
Ionescu didn’t start offensively until 2022 – 33 games into her career and in her third season. She made her first All-Star team and was named All-WNBA Second Team, averaging 17.4 ppg (eighth), 7.1 rpg (12th) and 6.3 apg (third).
“It’s a process and you can’t really shorten that process of figuring out what you need to adjust and change and add to your game to improve it from college to pro,” Ionescu told Yahoo Sports last month. “There’s no real shortcut to that. It’s just part of the process. Some people adapt more quickly than others, and I think the faster you can adapt and learn and give yourself grace through that process, the better.
In 2023, she took another leap by building a super team with Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones and Courtney Vandersloot. And following in the footsteps of other guards ranked No. 1 overall, Ionescu’s defense has steadily improved. Through thirteen games this season, her defensive rating of 94.2 is 10 points better than her average from the first two full seasons (103.8).
Even her international track at Clark for Team USA is lined up. On Tuesday, Ionescu was named to her first Olympic team. She was part of the 2020 Tokyo squad that played in the summer of 2021. But she missed training camp due to the ankle injury and the committee did not select her for the 5×5 or 3×3 teams.
The Caitlin Clark Effect
According to data from Across the Timeline, The Fever are on track to break their previous attendance record. In its inaugural season of 2000, Indiana averaged 11,266.88 fans across 16 home games. It was a consistent audience that ranged from a low of 9,006 to 13,178.
Through five of their 20 home games this season, the Fever have averaged 16,571.4 fans and have fluctuated between a low of 15,022 and 17,272. Their low mark doubles the single-game high set in 2023. The Fever’s average attendance would be a WNBA record if it holds. The 2002 Mystics team averaged 16,202.31 fans over 16 home games (range 13,130-19,766) at Capital One Arena.
Washington averaged at least 15,000 fans in the five seasons from 1998 to 2002. New York peaked at 15,660 in 2001, after four years of at least 14,000 fans per game. The Phoenix Mercury came close, peaking at 13,700 fans in the league’s first two seasons, and the Houston Comets averaged about 12,000 fans during their 1997-2000 championship run. Several franchises average at least 10,000 fans per season, per Across the Timeline.
