2024-04-28 08:05:19
INDIANAPOLIS – One of the most anticipated seasons in Indiana fever history will begin Sunday as 15 players walk into Gainbridge Fieldhouse for their first day of training camp.
Indiana’s most sought following addition is Caitlin Clark, the No. 1 overall pick. She is the NCAA career scoring leader and a two-time national player of the year. The Fever also added Celeste Taylor from Ohio and Leilani Correa from Florida in the draft, as well as Katie Lou Samuelson and Damiris Dantas on protected contracts in free agency.
Camp is regarding two weeks long with two preseason games: at the Dallas Wings on May 3, and at home May 10 once morest the Atlanta Dream. Koorskoper will have until May 13 to cut the grid to 12.
Here are four questions heading into training camp:
More: Indiana Fever has three cuts to make throughout training camp. Who will make the grid?
How will Caitlin Clark interact with Fever teammates Aliyah Boston?
Clark joins a cast of Aliyah BostonNaLyssa Smith and Kelsey Mitchell – all have already established themselves in Indianapolis.
Boston, the 2023 no. 1 pick, was the unanimous Rookie of the Year and an All-Star starter. Smith was the No. 2 pick in 2022 and made the WNBA All-Rookie team, and Mitchell was a first-time All-Star last season.
On the court, Clark should gel perfectly with the Fever’s top trio. Her 3-point shooting ability will space the floor, and will be a nice complement to Mitchell, the only Fever player to attempt more than 100 3-pointers last season. Clark and Boston have already started working out together before training camp, and their pick-and-roll game with two players might be dangerous.
“Having both (Clark and Mitchell) on the court, with Aliyah Boston in the post, is a coach’s dream,” said coach Christie Sides. “We have other players that are going to be around them, and we hope to have five players on the court that can all shoot the 3, which makes it really dangerous for other teams.”
More: Meet the artist who created a portrait of Caitlin Clark using a basketball as her paintbrush
Will Caitlin Clark be able to shoot freely?
At Iowa, Clark might shoot everything, whenever and wherever she wanted – which was a good strategy for the Hawkeyes, as they relied on her for regarding 34% of their scoring. But will she have the same green light in Indiana? Sides addressed it on draft night, especially when it came to Clark’s iconic logo 3-pointers.
“I’ve been asked by several of our players, ‘The logo 3s, how many are we going to take?'” Sides said on draft night. “And I said, ‘Well, how much are we going to practice, and how much are you going to make in practice?’ This is Caitlin’s streak, and it’s what she’s shown the world she can do. We’re going to take the best shot available to our team, but my god, she broke the (count record) on … almost a 40-footer.”
With Boston, Smith and Mitchell also in the lineup, Clark won’t have as much need to pull the scoring weight as much as she did at Iowa. She probably won’t need to score more than 30 points per game.
Clark will have a lot going through her head, including working with her new teammates and getting used to a new coaching staff, facility and city. If she can find the time to practice those long-range 3-pointers, Sides won’t rule them out of the playbook.
How will Erica Wheeler fit in?
Wheeler came to Indiana on a two-year, $404,000 contract, and she was the highest paid player in the WNBA in 2023 when the Fever added a $40,000 time-off bonus (preventing her from playing overseas for more than 90 days in the offseason) to make her salary $242,000. But Wheeler ended up not being what the Fever were looking for to run their offense. She averaged five assists per game, and Indiana ranked 11th out of 12 teams with just 18 assists per game.
More: A bonus that made Indiana Fever’s Erica Wheeler the highest-paid WNBA player is running out of time
Clark, who averaged 8.9 assists last year, should bolster that number. But how will the Fever’s highest-paid point guard fit into the rotation?
Wheeler will be Clark’s biggest competition for the starting spot. Assuming Clark wins that battle, Wheeler will run with the second unit and become one of the best backup point guards in the league. Wheeler has shown she is excited regarding Clark’s arrival, and she will be a good veteran presence for Clark to learn from.
How will Indiana’s other draft picks fare?
Second-round pick Celeste Taylor and third-round pick Leilani Correa are on an uphill climb to make the roster — as most late-round draft picks are. In 2023, only 15 of the WNBA’s 36 draft picks made the opening night roster. But Taylor and Correa have something the Fever need: defense. Indiana was 10th in the league in defense last year.
Taylor was the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year and a finalist for Naismith Defensive Player of the Year, and she anchored a ferocious full-court press with Ohio State. That press confused Big Ten offenses, including those of Iowa and Indiana, and Taylor averaged 2.5 steals per game.
Correa, the SEC Sixth Woman of the Year, also averaged 2.5 steals per game, mostly off the bench. She also averaged over 16 points.
Either pick can make the roster based on their defensive abilities; they just have the big task of showing it in a new environment in a small window of time.
1714293113
#Caitlin #Clark #Aliyah #Boston #fit
