7 reasons Caitlin Clark and the Fever are just fine despite 5-5 start

The sky is not falling on the Indiana Fever, despite the team sitting around league-average with 10 games logged on the 2026 season.

While the house next door burns with hot takes and hand-wringing about Caitlin Clark (and every single silly discourse surrounding Clark) and how the Fever are allegedly handling her, the teams is simply off to an uneven start with plenty of time to find consistency. Has it all been great? No. Has it all been bad? Also, no.

The Fever, like most of the WNBA’s 15 teams, are simply still trying to find a regular groove. A 5-5 record is pretty indicative of how Indiana has played. Some games, they’re world-beaters. Others, they’re just trying to stay afloat.

Why should Fever fans not crash out about this latest 10-game sample? Well, there are plenty of reasons, the biggest and most obvious being that it’s June and the WNBA title series isn’t until October. Outside of that, there are some good reasons to take a deep breath and relax about what Indiana is capable of achieving in 2026. This isn’t to say they’re guaranteed to win the title, but they’re in a good spot to keep improving and play better.

Last year’s Fever team found a way to grind out a 5-5 record, even though both Clark and Sophie Cunningham missed time with injury to start the season. This team has fared better with injuries so far, but the new roster is taking a moment to gel within Stephanie White’s system. If you look at that 2025 season, you’ll see the roller-coaster that was just launching off after 10 games. That team fought through multiple injuries and a major free agent departure a month into the season, somehow won the Commissioner’s Cup without Clark and found a way to get within a game of the WNBA Finals despite rostering multiple hardship players. The 2025 Fever team proves that you just can’t get too high or too low in June. The WNBA season, like most professional leagues with this many games, is a marathon, not a sprint. The Fever have plenty of time to sort through any on-court issues before the playoffs.

No, really, it is. Since 2014, only three Fever teams have made it to 5-5 after 10 games: the 2014 team, the 2025 team and this one. Indiana has been one of the worst professional sporting franchises of any league in the last decade-plus. White is the only coach who has been able to consistently get results out of this franchise since her first coaching stint in 2015. Her return has already righted the ship on simply being competitive on a regular basis; adding world-class talents like Clark and Aliyah Boston has made that much easier, of course. The Clark discourse swirls about outside of Gainbridge Fieldhouse and clouds the franchise’s history before her arrival. Before Clark, the franchise had fallen into disarray. Even in Clark’s first year, it took the Olympic break for the team to sort through its myriad of on-court issues to make a last-minute playoff stand. White has proven herself to be more than capable of steering the ship through choppy waters. To argue that the Fever are actually underachieving right now and still sit at one of the best franchise starts since the Obama administration is pretty remarkable to consider in a full view.
improve as the season goes on

One of the biggest storylines that isn’t getting a ton of attention right now is the overall health of Boston. She missed a game in May with a lower leg injury after missing time in the winter’s Unrivaled league with the same problem. She left the game on Saturday at New York, too, with a similar issue. Boston is the team’s elite post player; so much of its potential depends on what Boston can do to balance out the team’s elite backcourt of Clark and Kelsey Mitchell. If she’s not at 100-percent right now, it’s going to be hard for the Fever to reach their ceiling. Thankfully for Indiana, Boston has plenty of time as the season goes on to get healthier. Managing her minutes and limiting any further injury complications, old or new, will be key in getting Boston into a better place on the court. So far this season, she hasn’t been quite herself on a consistent basis. That’s probably because she’s playing through pain. If this were September, we’d be a little more concerned. It’s June; Boston has plenty of time to find her game, as long as she stays on the upward track on her health. If things linger, the team has to consider giving her a break.

Much ado has been made as of late on teams picking on Clark defensively. The superstar is one of the best offensive players of her generation, but her defense has always been a patchwork. Clark getting isolated on defense is favorable for opponents; targeting her on that end of the court is just smart for her limitations. However, Indiana just needs to tighten up its defensive scheming and put Clark in more favorable positions. The team’s Atlanta Dream win last week showed that Clark can be a lunchpail defender when called upon; she can do the job with basic competence. However, the Fever can’t win a title with Clark racking up fouls like she is. Adjustments won’t come swiftly, but Indiana has plenty of time to better position Clark on defense with scheme and personnel fixes. Plus, Clark can just play better. Her infamous Portland Fire outing in May showed the low; Atlanta showed the high.

Up until Saturday’s Liberty loss, you would have sworn forward Monique Billings might be on the outs with the Fever with her minutes dwindling and starting job in question. However, Billings played the best game of any Indiana player in New York with 15 points and eight rebounds. Her Liberty breakout shows why patience is important with new players and a newly constructed roster in general. It just takes different teams different amounts of time to find their rhythm during a long season. If Billings can keep her momentum swing in the right direction, that’s a huge asset the Fever didn’t previously have. Rookie guard Raven Johnson should improve as the season goes on, too, the team seemingly comfortable with some first-year mistakes here and there if it means she gets valuable on-court experience. You also wonder if free agent guard Ty Harris, who started for White on her 2024 semifinals Connecticut Sun team, could play more a role as she gets further from her 2025 season-ending injury.

Also, the Fever can and will likely tinker more with the roster as time goes on. Could they swing a big trade with their 2027 first-rounder? Could they activate developmental forward Justine Pissott to add more pop on the wing? Indiana’s roster liabilities are evident, the team is a bit thin in the frontcourt and has struggled a bit playing against teams with lots of size. You can’t solve all of those problems with roster tweaking, but you can tip the scale a bit.

The biggest reason for optimism in Indiana continues to be Clark, who is still one of the league’s top 10 scorers on average this season and still the assists leader. Clark’s been dealing with some back soreness this season, which may just stem from a lack of regular game reps in 2025. Remember, she’s still getting back in the regular season grind she missed so much of last season. There are mental hurdles, too, likely the fear of another injury that lands her back in the grueling rehab process. The noxious discourse surrounding her every move notwithstanding, Clark is still getting her sea legs back after a frustrating 2025 campaign. Time and reps are the only cure-alls for such a predicament for an athlete. She’ll benefit from just playing more, seeing her shot fall on a more consistent basis and, quite honestly, staying healthy for a long enough amount of time to shake off the anxiety of getting hurt again. The Fever proved last year what they can do without Clark; just imagine what’s possible when she’s playing at her best.