No matter the sport, some luck is required to win a championship.
The Indiana Fever had plenty of luck this season. It’s just that all of it was bad.
On Thursday night, Caitlin Clark confirmed what was already obvious: She will join Aari McDonald, Sydney Colson and Sophie Cunningham on the list of Fever players whose seasons were cut short by injuries this year. The idea that Clark and the Fever could contend for the WNBA title this year is gone, buried beneath a mountain of MRI results, bandages and ice packs.
Yes, they can still make the playoffs, clinging to the eighth spot with three games to play. But even if they hang on, they’d get a first-round matchup with the Minnesota Lynx and, well, good luck with that.
“Any time you have to reinvent yourself throughout the course of the season … it’s challenging,” Fever coach Stephanie White said last week.
And the Fever had to do it over and over and over again. Nine starting lineups. Sixteen different players on the roster. Injury setbacks. It’s been a season-long Groundhog Day of bad juju.
After making the playoffs in Clark’s rookie season, and playing the Connecticut Sun tougher than almost anyone expected, Fever management recognized the championship window might have opened earlier than they’d hoped. They went all in in the offseason, upgrading their roster by signing DeWanna Bonner, Natasha Howard and Cunningham and brought back White.
“My expectation is for us to try to win a championship,” Clark said before the season opener, a statement she repeated after she recorded a triple-double in the Fever’s 35-point thumping of the Sky.
Though the Fever started slowly, there were signs they could grow into a team to be reckoned with. They took the defending champion New York Liberty down to the wire when the Liberty were playing as well as anyone, then walloped them by 14 three weeks later. They beat the Lynx to win the Commissioner’s Cup.
Signs of trouble were already lurking, though. Clark, who had never missed a game in her four years at Iowa or in her rookie season, injured her left quad on May 24 and missed the next five games.
She returned June 14 but played only five games before injuring her left groin. Clark came back after five games, only to injure her right groin in her fourth game back. She has not played since.
Bonner and the Fever, meanwhile, were never a fit. She averaged just 7.1 points, less than half her career average, and lost her place in the starting lineup after three games. She left the team after playing nine games, and the Fever would waive her two weeks later.
Despite the loss of Bonner and Clark, the Fever managed to stay competitive. They went on a five-game win streak, led by All-Stars Kelsey Mitchell and Aliyah Boston, and rose as high as fifth in the standings on Aug. 3.
And then the wheels came completely off.
Both Colson and McDonald, who initially came to the Fever on an emergency hardship contract, suffered season-ending injuries in the Aug. 7 game against the Phoenix Mercury. Ten days later, Cunningham tore her MCL.
Adding insult to all these other injuries, Chloe Bibby, who joined the Fever on a seven-day contract in July before being signed for the rest of the season, is now out for the year with a knee injury.
‘Everybody in this league undergoes injuries at some point. I’ve never, in my 25 years in this league, seen all of this at once,’ White said earlier this week.
But the WNBA isn’t going to stop the season just because Clark and the Fever are going through it. Indiana has no choice but to keep playing, even as a season that began with such hope limps to a hellish end.
And hope for better luck next year.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.