Caitlin Clark’s spree of WNBA milestones in her rookie season with the Indiana Fever has been put on pause as of late. Frankly, they’ve been put on mute since the All-Star Game on July 20 in Phoenix. The Fever haven’t held any practices since, and WNBA games will resume in mid-August.
With downtime for much of the league due to the Paris Olympics, we take a look at all the accomplishments Clark has made 26 games into her pro career. We also highlight the records she can break when WNBA action returns.
Caitlin Clark’s WNBA records
Starting with the blatant choice: Clark cracking the WNBA single-game assist record — with 19 — at the Dallas Wings in the final game before All-Star. That’s also obviously the rookie line for years to come. So, good luck future rooks.
In the Fever’s home loss to the Washington Mystics in the second week of July, Clark became the only player in league history to reach 25 points, 10-plus assists, five-plus rebounds, five-plus steals, and make five 3-pointers. Oh and that day, she was only two blocks shy of achieving the second 5×5 in league history. Candace Parker did it in 2008.
Clark already has the most double-doubles by rookie guards in WNBA history. She posted five consecutive double-doubles measured by points and assists, which is only second to New York Liberty point guard Courtney Vandersloot with six. And that streak is among all players, not just rookies. The lone drawback for Clark is, she’s already broken the single-season turnover record.
But on July 20, Clark set the record for most assists in an All-Star Game with 10. The Fever guard was only one assist shy of matching legend Sue Bird’s 2017 statline. Clark later bantered Bird can have it. Staying on theme, Clark also reached these landmarks within the Fever franchise: (1) most single-game assists with 13, four times before the 19. (2) single-season assist leader.
What’s been overlooked already in this article is that Clark notched the first rookie triple-double in the first week of July. It adds to the sentences above, as it was the first in the Fever franchise, too. Clark wasn’t the fastest player to get it, as that belongs to New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu. An injury in her rookie year stifled her timeline. Ionescu got it in her sixth career game.
Caitlin Clark’s fastest-to records
Both East guards are linked in more ways. Clark joined Ionescu and Parker as the only WNBA players to record 85-plus points and 25-plus assists through their first five career games. Clark was the fastest rookie to 350 points, 120 rebounds and 150 assists, doing so in 22 games. She passed Ionescu as the fastest for those three categories, who required 30 games to get there.
It should also be mentioned that an absurd 14 of the 16 games — with at least 1 million viewers for the WNBA so far this season — have involved Clark. That many games with that benchmark viewership is the most in any WNBA season. The previous high was 15 in 1998, which included all three games of that year’s WNBA Finals, per Sports Media Watch. The Clark Effect is real.
What other records can Caitlin Clark break soon?
The single-season rookie assist record is slaughtered in the water. Clark needs just 13 assists to pass Ticha Penicheiro’s 225 in the 1998 season. The Fever rookie would have to average below one — one — per game for the rest of the season not to break it. The real question is whether Clark can get to the all-time single-season record. She’d need 104 assists in 14 games.
The All-Star’s 8.2 assists per game leads the WNBA. As Clark hunts the playoffs, and inherently chases the all-time assist record, she is on pace to be the first player in WNBA or NBA history to lead the NCAA in assists per game and pull off the identical feat in the pros their rookie season.
The rookie points record, on the other hand, seems more out of reach. Seimone Augustus with 744 points in 2006 has stood for almost two decades. Clark has 445 points right now. To break it, she’d need to average around 21.5 points in the last 14 games of the year. Clark scorched in July for 20.3 points per game, but there’s no way to tell yet how the month-long break without games will impact rookies.
Regardless, Clark has already claimed many records and helped shatter viewership.
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The post Clark Chronicles: 8 records WNBA rookie Caitlin Clark has already broken appeared first on ClutchPoints.
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