Alexa PhilippouJun 5, 2025, 05:19 PM ET
- Covers women's college basketball and the WNBA
- Previously covered UConn and the WNBA Connecticut Sun for the Hartford Courant
- Stanford graduate and Baltimore native with further experience at the Dallas Morning News, Seattle Times and Cincinnati Enquirer
INDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark will be reevaluated this weekend as she looks to come back from a left quad strain that has sidelined her for the past three games. While it is possible she could be back as early as Tuesday, the 2024 No. 1 pick said she will not rush her return.
"I'll miss this weekend's game [Saturday against the Chicago Sky], but after that, it's day-by-day and see how I feel, and just turn to the medical staff and what they think," Clark said. "I feel like I've made a lot of progress and I feel good, and I'm not going to rush coming back. It's just not worth it. But after this weekend, I'll be reevaluated and we'll have a better idea of when I'll return."
After the Sky, the Fever play two of the top teams in the league consecutively: the Atlanta Dream on June 10 and then the defending champion New York Liberty on June 14.
"We'll see," Clark said on her status for Tuesday. "We're trying not to put an exact date out there, because it is kind of a day-by-day thing and see how I feel. It's the type of injury like, you don't know, when I wake up, I'll feel different than the day before. We'll see. It could be a possibility, but I could also not be available for that game, too."
Clark spoke to reporters on Thursday for the first time since being ruled out on Memorial Day for at least two weeks with the quad strain, marking the first time across her collegiate and pro careers that she has ever missed games.
She suffered the injury early in the Fever's May 24 loss to the New York Liberty and believes adrenaline masked the issue during the game. Afterward, she felt pain and got an MRI, which revealed the strain. Clark also dealt with quad tightness in her left leg during preseason training camp, but the Fever are calling this a new, separate injury.
"I think it's been different," Clark said of being out. "Just having good perspective is the best way to approach it. Yeah, you can be frustrated and whatnot. But the medical team has done a really good job of doing my rehab every single day, staying in a routine, coming in, getting shots up. But more than anything, I think just focusing on being a really good teammate."
Not being able to practice, Clark said, has often been the hardest part of being injured. Clark did not participate in the portion of practice that was open to media on Thursday, a stretch where the team competed in a shooting drill.
"I love practice, I love getting better, so I think that's been the time for me to really find some patience," Clark said. "I've never been a patient person my entire life, so this is definitely testing me a little bit, but I think it's going to be really good for me... I can't change it but I think my patience has definitely grown a lot."
Coach Stephanie White also said she wanted Clark to use her injury as an opportunity to learn from the sidelines. Clark has sat next to the staff on the bench so she can hear their perspectives as games unfold and said she has prioritized being a consistent voice for her teammates as well as a "connector" between coaches and players.
"It's taught me a lot," Clark said of watching from the sidelines. "I've never been in that position before of actually getting to watch from the bench for an extended period of time. ... It's the same as you turn on the TV and watch the NBA or you watch other WNBA games -- that's the best way to learn basketball, is just watch and absorb it, and it's the same when I'm not active, too."
Indiana (3-5) has gone 1-2 in Clark's absence, though the Fever have also dealt with an injury to Sophie Cunningham (ankle) and had to bring in Aari McDonald on a hardship contract after falling short of 10 available players.
"I think they've been really resilient," Clark said of the team, which just snapped a three-game losing streak with a win Tuesday over the Washington Mystics. "It's hard when your point guard goes out that controls a lot of the game and people have had to step into positions that maybe they haven't had. I think just giving themselves grace. Things aren't going to be perfect. We're kind of playing a little bit different than we'd probably play if I had the ball in my hands. I thought we played a really great game our last game versus Mystics. I thought we started to flow a little bit better on offense. We played with a little more pace.
"But it wasn't just offense. I thought we could have played a lot better defensively. So I think just those little areas that we could have cleaned up, that whether I'm out there or not, those are things that we could do better and be better in, and Steph has really challenged them."
