Caitlin Clark is a spectator for the first time. How she’s handling injury, working her way back

Caitlin Clark has been out since May 26 with a quad strain, something she suffered vs NY Liberty. She didn’t rule out a return early next week.
This is Clark’s first time sidelined. she played in all 139 games during her four-year career at Iowa, all 42 games in her rookie season with the Fever, and the first four games this season.

INDIANAPOLIS – Caitlin Clark isn’t a patient person. She never has been.

She’s fueled on competitiveness, on playing her best day in and day out. She’s one of those players who loves practice just as much as she loves the games — she’s always looking to improve, looking to make her teammates better.

So, when she got sidelined with an injury for the first time in her college and professional career, it was a major adjustment.

“I love practice. I love getting better,” Clark said. “I think that’s just kind of been the time for me to, like, really find some patience. And I’ve never been a patient person my entire life, so this is definitely testing me a little bit, but I think it’s gonna be really good for me. I just tried to approach it in the best way I possibly can. I can’t change it, but yeah, I think my patience has definitely grown a lot.”

Clark, the reigning Rookie of the Year and First-Team All-WNBA, has been out for nearly two weeks with a left quad strain. Clark said she suffered the injury sometime during the Fever’s game against the New York Liberty on May 24, in which she scored 18 points and dished out 10 assists in a two-point loss.

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She couldn’t pinpoint a specific play or time it happened, but thinks it was sometime early in the game. So, she went to get some scans after the game, which diagnosed her strain.

“Obviously, adrenaline covers up a lot of stuff when you’re in the heat of battle,” Clark said. “And after the game, I had some pain, and then we got an MRI, and that kind of gave me the result that I didn’t want to see. But, you know, those types of things don’t lie.”

This injury wasn’t related to the left quad injury she had in preseason, which forced her to miss the Fever’s preseason opener on May 3. At that point, she described it as “just a little bit of tightness” and played the next day at her alma mater in Iowa City.

This one was a lot more serious. It was an injury that forced her to miss a regular or postseason game for the first time in 185 games — she played in all 139 games during her four-year career at Iowa, all 42 games in her rookie season with the Fever, and the first four games of her sophomore campaign this season.

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Clark has been doing some light work and rehab throughout her recovery, but she has been able to get some shots up and do some shooting drills. She hasn’t returned to 5-on-5 play yet, but she will be reevaluated this weekend following Indiana’s game at Chicago at the United Center.

She didn’t rule out a return against Atlanta on June 10, which would be just over two weeks after she first suffered the strain.

But she also didn’t promise anything.

“I’ll miss this weekend’s game, 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. “But I feel like I’ve made a lot of progress, and I feel good. I’m not going to rush back if it’s not worth it. But after this weekend I’ll be reevaluated and we’ll have a better idea of when I’m returning.”

Sitting out and watching is something Clark has not been used to in all of her adult life. She has always seen the game from the floor, evaluating plays and actions as they come to her, calling offensive sets while she reads the defense.

Her injury wasn’t something the Fever ever wanted to happen, obviously, but they’re grateful it’s both relatively minor and happened at the beginning of the season.

It also gives Clark an opportunity to see the game from a different lens.

“I also think it’s a great opportunity for Caitlin to watch the game from the sideline and to grow almost like a coaching kind of mindset,” Fever coach Stephanie White said on May 26. “See some different things that we might be talking about on film, addressing in practice, to see it develop in live action.”

Clark has sat directly next to the coaches in each of the past three games, listening as they work through the game in real time. She’s been active on the bench, as well, making sure to both celebrate the big moments with her team and make sure the officials know when she doesn’t like a call.

Throughout her injury, she’s essentially become the intermediary between the coaching staff and the players — telling her coaches what she sees from a player’s perspective, and taking a coaching mindset when talking to her teammates.

“When you’re out there playing and actually in the heat of the moment, you don’t always realize everything. You don’t always see everything. And you see things from a different perspective that maybe the coaching staff didn’t see,” Clark said. “So it’s certainly different. So I’m trying to be that connector between the coaches and then my teammates at the same time, whether that’s in the locker room at halftime, whether that’s during timeouts, things I see from the bench that maybe might be a little bit different of a perspective than our point guard is seeing.”

Chloe Peterson is the Indiana Fever beat reporter for IndyStar. Reach her at [email protected] or follow her on X at @chloepeterson67.

Get IndyStar’s Indiana Fever and Caitlin Clark coverage sent directly to your inbox with our Caitlin Clark Fever newsletter.

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