Caitlin Clark broke an Indiana Fever rookie record with half of the WNBA season still to go.
The No. 1 overall pick in the WNBA draft notched her 129th assist in a game against the Phoenix Mercury on Sunday, June 30. The helping hand came on a well-run pick-and-roll with center Aliyah Boston.
After Boston set a screen for a rapidly advancing Clark, the rising star found Boston as she peeled away and ran toward the basket. The end result was an easy layup for Boston and Clark’s new record.
Clark’s record is only within the Fever organization, and specifically for rookies, but she’s playing well enough to avoid needing any qualifiers. Her average of 6.6 assists per game is good for 4th-best in the entire league. She’s on pace to blow past the Fever’s all-time single-season assists record – 201, set just last year by Erica Wheeler – before the season is out.
Clark brought newfound attention to the WNBA after setting the NCAA record for points scored in basketball, men or women’s. She led her Iowa Hawkeyes to two straight NCAA championship games in 2023 and 2024, which they lost to the LSU Tigers and South Carolina Gamecocks, respectively.
At the first of those two championships, a seeming rivalry was born between Clark and her superstar counterpart on the Tigers: Angel Reese. While the pair have long denied that there’s any rivalry between them, games where Clark’s Fever play Reese’s Chicago Sky set ticket price and TV viewership records. Reese denied the rivalry in an interview in March.
“I don’t think people realize it’s not personal,” Reese said. “Once we get out between those lines, if I see you walking down the street, it’s like, ‘Hey, girl, what’s up? Let’s hang out.’ I think people just take it like we hate each other. Me and Caitlin Clark don’t hate each other. I want everybody to understand that.”
Clark agreed earlier this month, speaking during a post-game press conference.
“I’m pretty sure the only people that view this as a rivalry is all of you,” she said. “Like, to us it’s just a game of basketball.”
Reese set a rookie record on June 23 in a game against Clark when she recorded her eighth-straight double-double. She broke the single-season WNBA record for consecutive double-doubles on June 30 when she managed a 10th straight double-double. Prior to her 10-point, 16-rebound performance, she was tied with two-time WNBA MVP Candace Parker.
