Clark Wade/IndyStar
After a seismic shifting collegiate career for the Iowa Hawkeyes two-time National Player of the Year Caitlin Clark, it’s time for her to translate her collegiate success to the WNBA. From the logo threes to the wizardry-type passes, she has captivated us throughout her amateur career as she now looks to do that for the Indiana Fever.
She will be joining last year's No.1 pick Aliyah Boston who had a stellar rookie season herself, finishing with averages of 14.5 points, 8.4 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 1.3 steals, and 1.3 blocks per game on 57% from the field en route to being named the Rookie of the Year.
The Fever is coming off a 13-27 season, the third-worst record in the league last year, and ranked 7th in points per game (81.0), 10th in 3 PM per game (6.7) and percentage (34%).
Let's get into what Clark will bring to the Fever.
Scoring Savant
It doesn’t hurt to add the NCAA’s Division I all-time leading scorer (Men Or Women) to your roster as the Fever were in the bottom second half of scoring last season.
Throughout her collegiate career, Clark was nothing short of a showstopping scorer who captivated audiences with her logo threes that took your breath away. She never averaged less than 25 points per game during her collegiate career or shot below 45% from the field, with her production peaking this past season at 31.6 points per game.
Her PER 40 minutes stats are staggering according to Sports Reference, never averaging less than 30 points per game and a usage % of over 37% every season en route to leading the NCAA in scoring three different times, with back-to-back in 2023 and 2024 where she was named AP Player of The Year both times.
Clark’s ability as a threat from deep from the moment she steps over halfcourt will also help open up and spread the floor for her teammates such as Boston, Kelsey Mitchell, Nalyssa Smith, and so forth.
She’ll help tremendously in the scoring and three-point shooting department the moment she steps on the court.
Passing Wizardry
The more underrated part of Clark’s game is her passing, which tends to be overshadowed due to her precise marksmanship. However, she doesn’t get enough credit for how good she is as a playmaker.
She always makes the right pass when needed, whether it’s a go-ahead pass to get the break started in transition for an easy layup or a great bounce pass out of a pick-and-roll.
We’ve seen countless times throughout her career where she has threaded the needle in the defense due to her ability to draw two defenders to her because of her shooting which opens up opportunities for teammates.
She averaged 8.2 assists for her career at Iowa and led the NCAA in assists for three consecutive seasons (2022-2024) throughout her illustrious career.
Here is Clark's elite floor general ability:
Ratings Darling
Clark set numerous records throughout her Hawkeye career in counting stats and bringing in record-setting viewership for women’s college basketball at an unforeseen rate.
This year the National Championship between South Carolina and Iowa set a ratings record of 18.7 million viewers per Axios as the most watched women’s college game.
That came just after the previous game in the Final Four between Iowa-UConn between Clark and Paige Bueckers which had the former record of 14.2 million and last year's national title rematch of Iowa-LSU with Clark and Angel Reese reaching 12.3 million.
What do all those games have in common? Caitlin Clark was a part of every one of them as the main headliner we would like to call the “Caitlin Clark Effect”, even last year’s national title game had a then record of 9.9 million viewers that nearly doubled this year with the exponential growth of the women’s game.
Conclusion
In the end, Clark is a paradigm shifter coming to the Indiana Fever to bring megastar power to Indiana sports, the WNBA, and women’s professional sports.
From her killer demeanor on the court to her soft-spoken spoken humble nature off of it, it is a great time to be a WNBA fan.
Let CC Fever Begin!
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