The Redd Blog

I’ve watched a lot of basketball this year, and I keep coming back to the same thought: Caitlin Clark is playing through the kind of season most players never get, and half the conversation around her is still about whether she’s “worth it.” I’m done hedging on this one, same as I don’t hedge on my Yankees takes. She’s not just good for the Fever. She’s the best player this franchise has ever had, and this season is proving it in real time.

Where the Fever Stand Right Now

Indiana is sitting at 22-12 and holding the top spot in the Eastern Conference as of the middle of August, coming off a 98-87 win over the Dallas Wings where Clark and Aliyah Boston both put up double-doubles. That’s not a fluke stretch. Since July 1st, the Fever have gone 9-3, including road wins over the defending champion Las Vegas Aces by 16 and 34 points. They’ve had nine games this season with 100-plus points, tying a WNBA record. Their team scoring average is on pace to break the single-season league record set by the 2010 Phoenix Mercury. This is not a team limping toward the playoffs. This is a team peaking at the right time, and Clark is the reason the engine runs.

The Injuries Were Real, and She Kept Playing Through Them

Let’s not pretend this season has been easy on her body. Clark dealt with back issues starting in May, missing a game against the Portland Fire that she wasn’t even on the injury report for before it was announced two hours prior to tip-off. She left a June 24th game against the Mercury with more back trouble and missed three of the next four games. Coach Stephanie White put her on a minutes restriction in July just to manage the workload. This is on top of a 2025 season where she played just 13 of 44 games because of a quad strain and two separate groin injuries.

Most players get slower and more tentative after a stretch like that. Clark got better. Since coming back from the worst of the back trouble, she’s been putting up 21.6 points and 8 assists a night on career-best shooting splits. That’s not survival mode. That’s a player who refused to let her body dictate how good she was allowed to be.

The Night Nobody Will Forget

On July 17th against Seattle, Clark scored a career-high 45 points with 10 assists in a 110-107 win, and she did it in 29 minutes. Nobody in WNBA history had ever put up a 40-point, 10-assist game before that night. She shot 11-for-18 from the field, 6-for-10 from three, and 17-for-19 from the free-throw line, tying franchise legend Tamika Catchings for the most made free throws in a single game in Fever history. She also became the fastest player in WNBA history to hit 200 career three-pointers, doing it in 74 games and breaking a record that had stood since Katie Smith set it in 81 games.

That 45-point night broke Kelsey Mitchell’s franchise scoring record of 38, a mark that had stood since 2019. Two weeks later, on July 31st against Portland, Clark recorded her fourth career triple-double — 26 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists — tying Sabrina Ionescu for third-most career triple-doubles in league history. She’s 23 years old and she’s already stacking up records that most Hall of Famers never touch.

Clutch Isn’t a Vibe, It’s a Number, and Hers Are Better

I’m tired of the argument that Clark disappears in big moments. The stats say otherwise. In clutch situations this season, Clark is averaging 3.7 points per game on 48.4% shooting from the field and 38.9% from three, with a net rating of positive 6.1. Her plus-minus in the clutch is 1.3, the best mark on the entire Fever roster. Back in June against the Golden State Valkyries, she buried a 31-foot game-winning jumper as time expired to give Indiana a 78-76 win. That’s not a player who shrinks. That’s a player who wants the ball with the game on the line, and the numbers back it up every time someone tries to say otherwise.

The Best Playmaker This Franchise Has Ever Had

Here’s the case, plain and simple. Clark leads the WNBA in assists per game this season. She’s fourth on the league’s all-time list for games with both 30-plus points and 10-plus assists — and every other player on that list has at most one such game. Clark has four. She ranks fifth on the Fever’s all-time three-point list despite having played less than three full seasons. She broke the rookie scoring and assist records in 2024 and became the first rookie in league history to record a triple-double. Now, in year three, she’s setting single-game franchise scoring records and posting the best clutch numbers on her own team.

No one else who has ever worn an Indiana Fever jersey has combined this level of individual brilliance with this level of winning. Tamika Catchings is a legend and will always be the heart of this franchise historically. But in terms of pure playmaking, in terms of the ability to make everyone else on the floor better while also being the most dangerous scorer on most nights, Clark has separated herself. She does it while getting hit, held, and knocked to the floor more than anyone else in the league, and she still gets back up and finds the open teammate.

Where This Team Goes From Here

Indiana still has real basketball left to play, and a five-game winning streak that snapped with a loss at Minnesota shows this team isn’t invincible. But watching Clark play through a season that started with back spasms and questionable game-day statuses and turn it into the best individual campaign of her career, on a team sitting first in the East, tells me everything I need to know about who she is as a competitor. The Fever aren’t just building around a star. They’re building around the best playmaker this franchise has ever had, and she’s still getting better. If you want more no-holds-barred takes like this dropped straight into your inbox, check out The Redd Blog Newsletter.