Four questions to open Indiana Fever training camp: How will Caitlin Clark gel?

INDIANAPOLIS — One of the most anticipated seasons in Indiana Fever history will start Sunday, as 15 players step into Gainbridge Fieldhouse for their first day of training camp.

Indiana’s most coveted addition is Caitlin Clark, the No. 1 overall pick. She is the NCAA career scoring leader and a two-time national player of the year. The Fever also added Ohio State’s Celeste Taylor and Florida’s Leilani Correa in the draft, as well as Katie Lou Samuelson and Damiris Dantas on protected contracts in free agency.

Camp is about two weeks long with two preseason games: at the Dallas Wings on May 3, and at home May 10 against the Atlanta Dream. Fever brass will have until May 13 to cut the roster to 12. 

Here are four questions heading into training camp:

More: Indiana Fever have three cuts to make throughout training camp. Who will make the roster?

How will Caitlin Clark gel with Aliyah Boston, Fever teammates?

Clark is joining a cast of Aliyah Boston, NaLyssa Smith, and Kelsey Mitchell — all of whom have established themselves in Indianapolis already.

Boston, the 2023 No. 1 pick, was the unanimous Rookie of the Year and an All-Star starter. Smith was the No. 2 pick in 2022 and made the WNBA All-Rookie team, and Mitchell was an All-Star for the first time last season.

On the court, Clark should gel perfectly with the Fever’s top trio. Her 3-point shooting ability will space the floor, and it will be a good complement to Mitchell, the only Fever player to attempt over 100 3-pointers last season. Clark and Boston have already started to work out together ahead of training camp, and their pick-and-roll, two-player game could be dangerous.

“To have both (Clark and Mitchell) on the court, with Aliyah Boston in the post, it’s a coach’s dream,” coach Christie Sides said. “We’ve got other players that are going to be around them, and we’re hoping to have five players on the court that can all shoot the 3, that makes it really dangerous for other teams.”

More: Meet the artist who made a portrait of Caitlin Clark with a basketball as her paintbrush

Will Caitlin Clark be able to shoot freely?

At Iowa, Clark could shoot whatever, whenever, and wherever she wanted — which was a good strategy for the Hawkeyes, as they relied on her for about 34% of their scoring. But will she have the same green light in Indiana? Sides addressed that on draft night, especially when it came to Clark’s iconic logo 3-pointers.

“I’ve been asked by several of our players, ‘The logo 3s, how many are we going to take?’” Sides said on draft night. “And I said, ‘Well, how many are we going to practice, and how many are you going to make in practice?’ That’s Caitlin’s range, and that’s what she has shown the world that she can do. We’re going to take the best shot available for our team, but my gosh, she broke the (scoring record) on … almost a 40-footer.”

With Boston, Smith, and Mitchell in the lineup, too, Clark will not have as much of a need to pull the scoring weight as much as she did at Iowa. She likely won’t need to score over 30 points per game.

Clark will have a lot going through her head, including working with her new teammates and getting used to a new coaching staff, facility and city. If she can find the time to practice those long-range 3-pointers, Sides isn’t ruling them out of the playbook. 

How will Erica Wheeler fit in? 

Wheeler came to Indiana on a two-year, $404,000 contract, and she was the highest-paid player in the WNBA in 2023 when the Fever added a $40,000 time-off bonus (which prevented her from playing overseas for more than 90 days in the offseason) to make her salary $242,000. But Wheeler didn’t end up being what the Fever were looking for to run their offense. She averaged five assists per game, and Indiana ranked 11th of 12 teams with just 18 assists per game.

More: A bonus made Indiana Fever’s Erica Wheeler highest-paid WNBA player, allows her time off

Clark, averaging 8.9 assists last year, should bolster that number. But how will the Fever’s highly-paid point guard fit into the rotation? 

Wheeler will be Clark’s biggest competition for the starting point guard spot. Assuming Clark wins that battle, Wheeler will run with the second unit, becoming one of the best backup point guards in the league. Wheeler has shown she’s excited for Clark’s arrival, and she will be a good veteran presence for Clark to learn from.

How will Indiana’s other draft picks fare?

Second-round pick Celeste Taylor and third-round pick Leilani Correa are on an uphill climb to make the roster — as most late-round draft picks are. In 2023, only 15 of the WNBA’s 36 draft picks made opening-night rosters. But Taylor and Correa have something the Fever need: defense. Indiana ranked 10th in the league in defense last year.

Taylor was the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year and a finalist for Naismith Defensive Player of the Year, and she was the anchor of a ferocious full-court press with Ohio State. That press muddled Big Ten offenses, including those of Iowa and Indiana, and Taylor averaged 2.5 steals per game.

Correa, the SEC Sixth Woman of the Year, also averaged 2.5 steals a game, mostly off the bench. She also averaged over 16 points.  

Either pick could make the roster based on their defensive abilities; they just have the tall task of showing that in a new environment in a small time window.