Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark battled hard but ultimately fell short in a tightly contested 87-81 defeat to the Connecticut Sun on Wednesday to end her 2024 WNBA season.
And it may be a while until we see her back on the court. ESPN announcer Ryan Ruocco claimed the rookie may be finally ticketed for a break from the game.
Clark held up her end of the bargain in her second playoff appearance, scoring 25 points in an efficient 10/23 shooting display. The Fever star played all 40 minutes and stuffed the stat sheet with a further eight assists and six rebounds.
In the dying embers against the Sun, Ruocco revealed that Clark has no plans of playing offseason basketball. This means Clark will not be joining Angel Reese in the upstart Unrivaled League , set to start in January, or playing elsewhere.
Clark was drafted first overall by the Fever on April 16, just nine days after leading the University of Iowa to the NCAA title game with a historic tournament performance. She was coy when asked about her offseason plans on Wednesday evening, but appeared to suggest her attentions will be focused away from the basketball court.
"I was focused on beating the Connecticut Sun, I haven’t thought too far down the line," Clark said. "I don’t know what I’m gonna do tomorrow. I’m gonna play some golf. That’s what I’m gonna do until it becomes too cold in Indiana. I’ll become a professional golfer."
Fellow standout rookie Reese is among the 22 players who have already committed to Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier's new Unrivaled league. Unrivaled is an offseason 3v3 women's league promising six-figure salaries set to start play in Miami this January.
The league still has two spots left to fill and will undoubtedly be pursuing Clark's signature until the very last moments. Stewart and Collier have even secured the signature of current UConn star Paige Bueckers.
"Who wouldn’t want to play with two great players like that?" Reese said of Unrivaled. "And I knew they were gonna bring on a couple more dogs. Nobody wants to go overseas. A lot of us never want to have to go overseas."
“Being able to make — what? — six figures. Being able to make six figures here within three months…just being able to get better…three-on-three exposes everything. So, I’m excited for it.”
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Later in her postgame press conference, Clark discussed the speed in which major life events occurred for her this year and hinted she needs to take a step back to reflect.
She said: “I feel like I didn’t even have time to really reflect on my college career because it ended so fast, then I came here and was trying to give everything I could to this team and kind of move on to put all that behind me and help this team get back to the playoffs."
"I feel like taking some time to myself and really enjoying that, reflecting back. You know, it was special. There were a lot of things that this group accomplished that a lot of people probably didn’t think was possible. It’ll definitely be a little weird for me over the course of the first couple of weeks, then I’m sure I’ll get bored and pick up a basketball again.”
Clark led the WNBA in assists while helping the Fever snap an eight-year postseason drought.
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