When the season started out this year there was a lot of hope that the Indiana Fever were going to be one of the best teams in the WNBA and perhaps make a run for the Championship. While a lot of that was just wild positive-thinking rather than based on actual statistics and talent, there was still a lot of hype about it.
They didn't start out that great and even at full strength looked more like a middle of the table team, which is what they are right now as they sit, I believe in 7th place although I am not staking my reputation on that being the case. It's somewhere around there, this much I know.
The team started to "find their legs" about a quarter of the way into the season but still for the most part, their inconsistency of performance made any fan a bit leery about the prospect of being a top team. Now here we are with just a month left to play and the Fever roster is likely the most injured of all the WNBA.
One of the weapons that was, in a way, discovered about halfway through the season was Sophie Cunningham, who quickly rose up in the ranks of playtime and became a starter who was instrumental, particularly from 3-point range, in every game. She is a worker, and was doing a lot to keep the team competitive after first Caitlin Clark, then Aari McDonald, and Sydney Colson were injured during play. Prior to this Sophie had been known for being one of the prettiest players in the WNBA but wasn't really known for doing a hell of a lot in the actual games. Wow did that change after she was given her chance. Unfortunately for Sophie, right about the time when she was starting to shine, some incidental contact after a play against the Connecticut Sun resulted in what she described as a "pop" in her knee that was later confirmed to be a season-ending injury.
That's the 3rd guard out for the rest of the season this year for the Fever and they already enlisted new guards on something called a "hardship contract" - which is something I had never heard of before this year. In brief, you are granted the ability to add players to your roster outside of transfer windows if you can show that the team doesn't have enough members at a certain position. This cannot really be abused because there are restrictions on when your injured players can come back... Basically you can't claim a hardship contract just because you are faking it and want to rest your best players - I'm not sure of the specifics.
But now the Fever are in a position where several of their roster have only played a few games with the team and well, that isn't going to work very well regardless of how talented the person is that you swap in. Basketball is a team sport afterall and it takes a long time to meld with the rest of the team.
At this point, and this is just my opinion of course, I think it wouldn't be a terrible idea for the Fever to not really be in any hurry to get Caitlin Clark back on the court. They need to be absolutely sure that her injury is completely recovered before they even attempt to do so. Even if she does come back, a great deal of her backup squad isn't even there anymore and wont be until next year.
There is also news of CC sustaining another injury in a practice session in the way of a "bone bruise." Man, I am learning a lot this year because I was unaware that was a thing.
To make matters even worse for Indiana, their next two games are against the Minnesota Lynx, who appear to be the favorites to win it all this year. They have only lost 6 games in total this season and it seems inevitable that they are going to go all the way. Oh and Indiana has to play them one more time in their last game of the season. Indiana has lost 16 games this season.
So what do you do if you are the management of Indiana? Do you just play it safe and ride out the rest of the season? Even though that would kind of be a disservice to the fans that does seem to be, at least from a business perspective, the sensible choice. They really don't stand any chance of winning the Championship and this was pretty apparent even before they became plagued with injuries.
If the concern lies on Caitlin Clark, and it really should since she is by far the biggest star the WNBA has ever had (the only one perhaps?) the Fever still have her under contract guaranteed until the end of 2027 season. Do they really want to risk injuring her further as well?