The expectations were high for Caitlin Clark even before she declared for the WNBA Draft. Throughout the ensuing months they only grew for the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer tasked with bringing the Indiana Fever back to prominence. And she delivered.
Despite a rocky start that Clark joked during the playoffs she doesn’t like to think about, she delivered one of the best first-year seasons in league history to lead Indiana back to the playoffs and earn the honor of 2024 Rookie of the Year, according to The Athletic’s Shams Charania.
Clark averaged 19.2 points, 8.4 assists and 5.7 rebounds per game in the regular season. She ranked seventh in scoring, shooting 41.7% overall, 24.4% from 3 and 90.6% from the free-throw line. She led the league in assists to earn the peak performer award and added 1.3 steals and nearly a block per game. As the year progressed, she became a clear MVP candidate and finished fourth in the MVP vote won by A’ja Wilson. Clark is likely to be an All-WNBA first-team selection. The Fever were eliminated from the first-round of the playoffs Wednesday by the Connecticut Sun.
“Caitlin is special,” Indiana head coach Christie Sides said before Game 1 of the playoffs shortly after the MVP results were announced. “Everybody knows that. She’s been special. She came into the best league in the world, the best women’s basketball league in the world. She found her footing. She’s continued to get better. She’s put herself in a position to be called one of the best players in this league. That’s incredible for a rookie.”
Clark broke a multitude of records in her first season. She smashed the single-season rookie assists record set by Ticha Penicheiro in 1998 and the overall single-season assists record set by Alyssa Thomas last year. In the Fever’s final regular-season home game, she passed Seimone Augustus for the rookie scoring record with a career-high 35 points. Her 12 point-assist double-doubles bested the 11 set by veteran WNBA champion Courtney Vandersloot in 2017. That already ties her for ninth on the career list and in two of them she secured a triple-double.
Indiana started the season 2-9 while facing the league’s best in a condensed schedule. The drain of an entire collegiate season and NCAA tournament run to the title game also took its toll on the star as she transitioned to the pro game.
In late May, she scored 30 points for the first time and in June began to compile double-digit assists. The Fever made clear they were going to be a second-half force with an upset win over the Liberty in July. It was Clark’s first career triple-double and the first by a rookie in league history. In the first-half finale against Dallas, she dished out a single-game record 19 assists.
The month-long All-Star/Olympic break gave the rookie the gift of time and a second training camp environment to build chemistry with her new teammates. The Fever took off and finished 9-5. Clark won Eastern Conference Player of the Month for August, becoming the first rookie in league history to win the honor. The WNBA started the monthly awards in 2010.
Clark averaged 24 points, 5.2 rebounds and 8.5 assists in the stretch with a shooting line of 46.9/37.3/93.8. She led all players in August in assists and 3-pointers and ranked third in scoring. She opened September with a second triple-double and became the first rookie and sixth player overall to reach 200 assists and 100 3-pointers in a single season.