Impact of Caitlin Clark Injury on Indiana Fever Short and Long-Term Outlook

The Indiana Fever have taken a hit with second-year phenom Caitlin Clark sidelined for at least two weeks with a left quad strain, missing at least four games.

Clark is already on a “best player ever” trajectory in her young career and her absence will be felt.

The Fever are off to a much improved start compared to last season thanks to their offseason moves that bolstered their roster alongside Clark with the additions of veterans Natasha Howard and DeWanna Bonner and improved play from up-and-comer Aliyah Boston.

However, with Caitlin Clark set to miss the first games of her professional and collegiate career, the Indiana Fever are vulnerable. We dig in to our Dimers Pro WNBA Predictions, combining our WNBA Player Projections, data-backed game previews and WNBA Championship futures odds to identify just how big of a void Clark leaves for Indiana in the short and long-term.

Can the Fever win Without Caitlin Clark?

Usurpingly, Clark is the offensive funnel for this team, scoring or assisting on 150 of the team’s 352 total points pre-injury, and that’s with a baseline of 2 points for every assisted basket. That means 42.6% of this team’s offense comes directly from Caitlin Clark’s involvement - not even considering any second-chance points off her rebounds or shared team-best 1.3 steals per game.

Four games is nearly 10% of the season; even if Clark returns right away, we’re looking at about 1/5th of the season already completed - in a worst-case scenario where the Fever go winless without Clark, that’s suddenly a sizable hole to climb out of, especially when you consider they’re 2-3 after dropping their first game and the Mystics (who they’ll play twice in her absence) and Valkyries are surprising early, tightening up the bottom of the table for the postseason standings, which the Fever now currently sit one spot outside of.

The Fever will be without Caitlin Clark for at least four games - her first missed action in her collegiate and professional career.

Indiana opened as the third favorite to win the WNBA title behind the reigning champion New York Liberty and the Las Vegas Aces. The Dimers model gave them the second-highest chance at 19.6%. Despite all the negative impact of Clark's absence, this has currently dropped their probability by less than 1% - ultimately our model believes the Fever will be fine long-term. And so do the sportsbooks - the Fever are -5000 to make the playoffs, with just a 6.7% implied probability of finishing among the bottom five teams and missing the postseason.

No Time to Panic, But Fever Starters Must be the Cure

The immediate impact of Clark’s absence is more clear. 

In their first game without Clark, Kelsey Mitchell’s points projection shot up by about 3.5 points in the Dimers model as our highest-projected scorer vs. the Mystics on May 28 at 19.9 points. Third-year standout Aliyah Boston’s projection raised by 2.7 points from an average of 14.1 to 16.8. 

Neither rose to the occasion vs. the Mystics, with Boston shooting just 5 times and Mitchell going just 4-16 from the floor. While the opportunity was there, the team looked lost without Clark running the offense, shooting just 23.8% from deep, well below their 34.5% average so far.

For their second game without Clark vs. the Connecticut Sun on Friday, May 30, Mitchell and Boston’s point totals have receded as our predictive model anticipates the scoring struggle seen in the first game, even against an inferior team.

As a team, Clark’s absence is a big factor in our model’s spread prediction. After predicting the Fever with a 54-56% probability to cover the point spread in each game so far, our model shifted to strongly favoring the Mystics to cover the +4.5-point spread at a significant 63% probability on Wednesday. Though we still favored the Fever to win the game at 52%, their odds imply 64.9% of a victory, and we had value in the Mystics to win. Both bets hit as the Fever failed to reach even their lowered expectations without Clark.

Via PTS/AST, Caitlin Clark had accounted for nearly 50% of Fever scoring before injury.

Last night, DimersBOT seized the value on Washington as the Fever put up their lowest total yet. 🔥

The spread was a free play, but only Dimers Pros had the +195 upset.

Quit missing these -… pic.twitter.com/lkWNIHWhiq

— Dimers.com (@DimersCom) May 29, 2025

About that 42.6% of points Clark has been responsible for? The Fever have been projected for at least 87 points in every game they’ve been favored - but they were projected for 82 points vs. Washington who have held teams to an average of 78.8 per game this season. The model was correct as the Fever turned in their lowest scoring output of the season with just 77 points.

In their upcoming second game vs. the Sun, they’re predicted to win by a significant amount with an 87.1% probability, but just a 50% probability to cover the spread against the WNBA’s worst defense and lowest scoring offense, indicating the Fever’s lower point ceiling without Clark.

MORE: Predictions for Fever vs. Sun on Friday, May 30

Ripple Effect Throughout the WNBA

Beyond the impact on the Fever and the team’s performance, there are other ramifications of Clark’s injury:

• The WNBA MVP race - Clark opened as the betting favorite and sat there at -115 odds prior to her injury. Following the injury, she’s dropped to +360 (still second-best) and the Minnesota Lynx’s Napheesa Collier has jumped from +175 to -240. That's a big jump for a player allegedly to miss just four games and if the Fever struggle without Clark, shouldn't that reinforce how valuable she is to the team? Don't wait too long, but this might be the best price to get Clark for MVP.

• Ticket prices - The impact of Clark on the WNBA’s revenue is widely known, but average ticket prices over the first four Fever games without Clark have dropped from $137 to $80. Their two road games in this span, @ Washington and @ Chicago, were both moved to larger arenas to accommodate the expected crowds. Now you can get in for less than $25 to one of the most anticipated games of the early season.

Dimers' 2025 WNBA Betting Resources

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