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Neil Paine
Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark didn’t miss a single game between her four years at Iowa and her first WNBA season, playing in at least 206 consecutive contests dating back to high school. But that was before a left quad strain sidelined the 2024 Rookie of the Year only four games into the 2025 campaign, foreshadowing a season filled with frustrating injuries.
After that early absence, Clark returned for five more games, starting with her best performance of 2025 so far: a 32-point outing at home against the defending champion New York Liberty. But a left groin ailment sidelined her again in late June, this time for four games. And after returning for four more games at less than 100 percent healthy — she averaged an uncharacteristic 12.5 points on 31% shooting over that span — an injury to the opposite groin landed Clark back on the injured list for the Fever’s past 10 games.
With their best player sidelined for 19 of a possible 32 contests (plus the Commissioner’s Cup championship game), the Fever’s season could have been a disaster, but that hasn’t been the case. Instead, they are on track to make the playoffs and are projected to improve on last season’s win total by 4.5 victories in the latest Elo forecast, especially if they can rally after losing guards Aari McDonald and Sydney Colson to season-ending injuries on Friday. They even won the Commissioner’s Cup without Clark.
The Fever (18-14) haven’t quite thrived without Clark; they lost to the Los Angeles Sparks and the Phoenix Mercury by an average of 22 points to end a four-game trip last week. But they have survived to go 10-9 without her, including 6-4 over the latest stretch. Let’s dive into four reasons they have been able to make the most of missing the sport’s highest-profile star for much of the season.
The Clark-less schedule has been favorable
The Fever have had a lucky draw with Clark’s absences aligning with an easier stretch of the schedule. Excluding games against the Fever, the average net rating of their 2025 opponents has been -1.8 — the second easiest in the league, ahead of only the Minnesota Lynx at -2.1. But in the games Clark has missed (in which the Fever have gone 10-9), the average net rating for their opponents has been -2.7 as compared to -0.6 in the games she has played (in which they are 8-5).
Easier defenses have primarily fueled that difference in schedule strength. While the Fever’s average opponent in Clark’s games was slightly better on offense — with an average efficiency of 104.0 points per 100 possessions as compared to 103.7 for opponents in games she has missed — they were especially better on the other side of the ball, allowing 0.9 fewer points per 100 possessions. That has made it possible for Indiana’s leading scorers — recently, Kelsey Mitchell, Aliyah Boston, Sophie Cunningham, Natasha Howard and McDonald — to keep the offense afloat, spreading out the 31.4% of team possessions Clark had used when she was on the court (the league’s third-highest usage rate).
Now, the Fever’s average opponent has gotten more difficult as the Clark-less part of their season has dragged on. While the average opponent during her first injury stint had a -5.7 net rating in non-Fever games, that figure rose to -3.1 during her second injury absence. And during the latest stretch, the Fever have essentially faced a schedule much closer to league average, at -1.0 on average. (Five of the 10 games were against above-average opponents, and seven were on the road. Yet over that stretch, Indiana has gone 6-4.)
The Fever’s defense is for real
Without Clark’s 16.5 points and 8.8 assists per game to fuel the offense, Indiana has needed to turn elsewhere for a winning edge, and it has found it on the other side of the ball: The Fever have the WNBA’s most improved defense overall as compared to 2024, which has helped carry them without Clark.
Last season, Indiana ranked 11th out of 12 teams in defensive rating, allowing 6.0 more points per 100 possessions than the average. (Incidentally, this was part of why the advanced metrics were lower on Clark’s rookie year than the conventional per-game numbers. It is hard to make a convincing case for huge two-way value when you average 35.4 minutes for one of the 30 worst defenses in league history.) But this season, the Fever are up to No. 8 out of 13 teams, allowing 1.0 fewer points per 100 than average.
That 7.0-point improvement in defensive rating is the 15th-largest year-over-year leap taken on defense by any team in WNBA history.
A defensive turnaround was to be expected with new coach Stephanie White having led the league’s No. 1-rated defensive team, the Connecticut Sun, last season. The addition of Howard and Cunningham, who had a history of solid defensive metrics, also were reasons for optimism. And Clark figured to improve on D in her second pro season.
Still, the results are notable, with six of the team’s top seven minute-earners registering an above-average defensive RAPTOR rating. While their defense showed cracks in back-to-back games last week, allowing an uncharacteristically high 127.6 efficiency rating (albeit against good offenses in the Sparks and the Mercury), the Fever have mostly rallied on defense.
Spreading the responsibility more evenly and efficiently
With Clark one of two WNBA players to rank inside the top five of usage and assist rates when healthy this season (New York’s Sabrina Ionescu is the other), it’s not possible for the Fever to replace her production with one player, but they have managed to recreate Clark’s contributions in the aggregate.
While the ceiling of the average game score — an all-in-one summary of a player’s box score contributions — for the Fever’s five most productive players with Clark versus without Clark on the court has fallen (16.2 to 14.0), the floor has risen (7.2 to 8.6) and the average is scarcely different (10.9 to 11.2).
Certain players have taken to the evolving Clark-less arrangement better than others. Boston, for example, has suffered without her point guard as a running mate: In the games Clark has missed, Boston’s true shooting percentage (TS%) has fallen from 63.2% to 56.7%, and she is scoring less (13.9 to 6.9 point per game), a trend that has only worsened in this latest stint without Clark. Lexie Hull has a -3.6 RAPTOR since July 16, and Sydney Colson was at -9.1 before she was lost for the season with a left ACL tear.
On the flip side, Mitchell and Howard are scoring more in games without Clark, and McDonald was up to 11.6 PPG with a strong 60.0% TS% in the most recent stretch of games Clark missed before McDonald suffered her own season-ending foot injury.
Cunningham has been on fire of late, averaging 12.4 PPG with a 76.1 TS% — thanks in part to a sizzling 45.5% 3-point rate — and a +0.4 RAPTOR overall since July 16. That’s a dramatic uptick in performance for a player who was averaging 7.1 PPG in games Clark played.
With so many injuries, the Fever will have to reshuffle their mix yet again, but White has done a great job of reassigning roles and responsibilities in a way that maximizes a roster originally built to revolve around a player who has missed much of the campaign.
Remember: It’s been about survival
By going 10-9 in Clark’s absence, the Fever have positioned themselves for a playoff run that maximizes the potential of a season she has missed 60% of. But they are still a much better team with her in the lineup — and they will need her back at full strength in order to compete for a championship.
Before running out of gas during their stretch on the road, the Fever had been playing some of their best Clark-less ball with a five-game win streak. But after accounting for game location and opponent quality, their overall net rating in games without Clark (-0.3) is not even close to what it is in games with Clark (+6.4), primarily due to their offense. With Clark, the Fever’s +4.4 offensive rating over expected would be good enough to rank third best in the league; but without her, they essentially fall to league-average despite Mitchell’s scoring, McDonald’s pre-injury renaissance and the efficient play of Howard and Cunningham.
It’s tempting to look at the one-game difference in Indiana’s record with Clark versus without Clark and conclude that missing its superstar hasn’t made much of a difference on the team’s results. But much like when the Chicago Bulls won 55 games after Michael Jordan retired, in 1993-94, the magnitude of Clark’s absence is being hidden by luck, schedule strength and other factors obscured in the topline records.
The Fever should be commended for rising to the challenge of surviving three separate stretches without Clark. They have shown they have the depth of a title contender while learning lessons that likely will be important down the stretch. But don’t let the records mislead you: The numbers say they will need Clark back, and at her best, by the time the playoffs tip off to reach their ceiling.
