How Caitlin Clark got healthy for the Fever's 2026 WNBA season - ESPN

INDIANAPOLIS — Caitlin Clark received a handoff on the left wing, took two dribbles past a screen and split a pair of defenders with a pinpoint bounce pass to her rolling big for a simple layup.

It was Clark's first meaningful game in eight months, but the scene looked awfully familiar.

Barely over a minute later, she had two more assists. For good measure, and before the first quarter was over in Team USA's FIBA World Cup qualifying tournament opener, Clark pulled up five steps from beyond the 3-point line and buried one of her trademark treys.

It was exactly what Amber Cox had raced to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to see. The Indiana Fever general manager was eager, anxious and optimistic about her star player's first actual game since July 15, 2025. She had gotten glimpses of Clark through months of rehab and some spirited pickup games in Indianapolis, but this was different. After a 2025 WNBA season when she was plagued by injuries, Clark was back on the hardwood with some of the best players in the world and going against elite international talent.

She answered any questions quickly, putting up 17 points and 12 assists — off the bench — in the tournament's first game on March 11. Six days later, she was named tournament MVP after averaging 11.6 points and 6.4 assists while shooting 52.9% from the field and 40.0% from behind the arc over five games in Puerto Rico.

«I had so much excitement and anticipation to see her back on the floor, and to see her deliver at such a high level and casually walk away with the MVP,» Cox told ESPN six weeks later, ahead of the Fever's media day. «That's when we all felt great about the fact that she was fully back.»

THE REHAB PROCESS was long and annoying for the then-reigning Rookie of