{"id":228589,"date":"2025-10-21T05:19:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T05:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/228589\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T05:19:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T05:19:09","slug":"caitlin-clark-injury-recovery-playing-offseason-fevers-stephanie-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/228589\/","title":{"rendered":"Caitlin Clark injury recovery, playing offseason, Fever’s Stephanie White"},"content":{"rendered":"

INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 The Indiana Fever<\/a> are taking it slow with Caitlin Clark<\/a>\u2019s recovery from a right groin injury and left ankle sprain, but the Fever<\/a> star is continuing to take steps toward full strength.<\/p>\n

Fever coach Stephanie White<\/a> told IndyStar on a Fever Insider Podcast episode launching Wednesday<\/a> this week that Clark isn\u2019t yet back to playing 5-on-5, but she has done some work in 2-on-2 and 3-on-3 situations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not jumping into anything that\u2019s too much,\u201d White said. \u201cWe have the ability to right now take it on week-by-week basis, doing some 3-on-3, doing some 2-on-2, building into 5-on-5. Her being able to play in game-like situations is going to be important. It\u2019s been a long time building back into that, but it is October, and she needs to be able to slowly build back so, from an endurance standpoint, she\u2019s laying a really good foundation so she\u2019s not having any setbacks or any regression.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clark was limited to 13 games in 2025 because of various injuries, including a left quad strain, left groin strain, right groin strain, and left ankle bone bruise.\u00a0 She averaged 16.5 points, 8.8 assists, an 5.0 rebounds in those 13 games.<\/p>\n

Her final game of the season came July 15, when she strained her right groin after a non-contact bounce pass to teammate Kelsey Mitchell<\/a> while in the final minutes of a win against the Connecticut Sun in Boston.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That injury forced her out of the All-Star Game<\/a> days later, an event hosted in her home city of Indianapolis and a game in which she was a captain, as well as the 3-point contest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She spent months trying to work back from that right groin injury, but a left ankle sprain Aug. 7 \u2014 one she called \u201cone of the worst sprains I’ve dealt with”<\/a> in Fever exit interviews\u00a0 \u2014 prevented her from adequately testing out her right groin to see if she could return. She was eventually ruled out for the year<\/a> with three games remaining in the regular season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Fever\u2019s season extended three weeks with their run to a decisive Game 5 of the WNBA semifinals against the eventual league champion Las Vegas Aces, and Clark gave her support from the sideline in every game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI would never speak for Caitlin, but it\u2019s frustrating as an athlete to go through injury, when you\u2019re not able to do what you love to do,\u201d White said Monday. \u201cCertainly, having setbacks, then working your way back, then having another setback, all of that is frustrating.<\/p>\n

\u201c… While it\u2019s frustrating, it\u2019s important that we get her back at 100% and that she\u2019s comfortable, she\u2019s confident, that she\u2019s healthy, and that we can move forward in a way that continues to build for her career and her franchise.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Fever expect her to be back at full strength by the beginning of the 2026 season.\u00a0Clark has a bit of an earlier timeline, as she said she hopes to be on the USA Basketball Women\u2019s National Team for the World Cup qualifiers, which run from March 11-17 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, those qualifiers are months away. Clark doesn’t have plans to play in Unrivaled<\/a>, a 3×3 league based in Miami, or Athletes Unlimited, a 5×5 league based in Nashville, this offseason, either, giving her ample time for a full recovery.<\/p>\n

And it starts with the fundamentals.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust as much as being on the floor and working skillset and working on movement patterns, is rhythm and timing and balance and all of those things,\u201d White said. \u201cNow, instead of working on one to two things at a time, now it\u2019s three to four things at a time. Now we\u2019ve got decision-making and live-action, we\u2019ve got staying on balance, we\u2019ve got changing direction, we\u2019ve got explosiveness, all of these things, and oh by the way, at 90-100%, instead of 50-60-70%. It will take some time, but we do have that opportunity right now to begin to lay that foundation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chloe Peterson is the Indiana Fever beat reporter for IndyStar. Reach her at capeterson@gannett.com or follow her on X at\u00a0@chloepeterson67<\/a>.\u00a0Get IndyStar’s Indiana Fever and Caitlin Clark coverage sent directly to your inbox with our\u00a0Caitlin Clark Fever newsletter<\/a>. Subscribe to IndyStar’s YouTube page<\/a> for Fever Insiders Live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 The Indiana Fever are taking it slow with Caitlin Clark\u2019s recovery from a right groin injury…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[62,461,49,7075,735,48,7076,551,543,1322,6003,1321,2000,5904,2803,3844,26677,4650,26678,2034,44,1333,2042,82,865,1320,1339,630,4134,4143],"class_list":["post-228589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ai","tag-basketball","tag-ca","tag-caitlin","tag-caitlin-clark","tag-canada","tag-clark","tag-college","tag-college-sports","tag-enabled","tag-fever","tag-highlights","tag-in","tag-indiana","tag-indiana-fever","tag-indianapolis","tag-kelsey","tag-kelsey-mitchell","tag-mitchell","tag-neutral","tag-news","tag-overall","tag-overall-neutral","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-story","tag-story-highlights-ai-enabled","tag-wnba","tag-womens","tag-womens-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}