Caitlin Clark was among the fittest players in women’s basketball before this season. Clark had not missed even one game ever since entering the Iowa hallways. She had soldiered through, playing 139 out of 139 games in college, and also did not miss any games as a rookie in the WNBA before 2025.  The body had to give some time or the other. It was a matter of time, as that high-energy, constant movement style of play with such a heavy load is not sustainable in the long term. 

As a result of this sudden injury-ridden season, Clark is having a tough time, as she expressed a couple of weeks ago, saying, “It’s challenged me mentally. It’s really hard to stop and go, stop and go, stop and go, especially when you’re not feeling your best.” The journey has been treacherous, and it’s even more difficult when she had the championship as a goal before the season. The mind starts playing tricks on you after you feel the target slipping away. That slip continued for the Fever when a Clark-less side fell to the defending champions, New York Liberty, and Sabrina Ionescu, who has extensive experience with such injuries, had a special message for the point guard. 

Ionescu was asked what the 2021 version of herself could advise Clark with her struggles, and she replied, “Yeah, I mean, actually that’s something that I told her. Obviously, completely different injuries in terms of how long I was out for. You know, I didn’t really have a rookie year, but I told her I had a similar situation. And coming back, I had four soft tissue injuries that next year that a lot of people didn’t know about. I played through two calves and two hamstrings, and kind of just tried to play through it and didn’t say anything.”

Ionescu was down and out after just three games into her pro career, which must have been heartbreaking. She sustained a grade 3 ankle sprain, which required surgery and a delicate procedure that involved removing a loose bone chip that was causing issues with the tendon behind her ankle. It required a lot more time to recover than Sabrina gave it. As a youngster and the No.1 pick, she let the occasion get to her. After missing the rookie season, she was back on the court immediately for the next season, as she felt that “she had let my team down”. Ionescu reminisced last year that she let “the media scrutiny get into her head.”

She further said, “And it’s kind of similar when you don’t go through any injury early on. career, you have no idea how to maneuver it, and that’s something I was able to talk to her about at All-Star.” 

Sabrina was always a workaholic with an iron woman reputation, and used to live in the gym in summer and spring. Right from her high school days, she was the last person to leave practice late into the night so often that the school principal informed Miramonte High School’s janitorial staff to “just leave her alone and let her shoot,” her coach Kelly Sopak said. That is very much like Clark, who is known to make 100 shots in each range during her practice regimen, including free throws. That is apart from the conditioning and the cardio. When a player who is used to going through such a hard grind has to sit on the sidelines with only a limited workout, the motivation is bound to drop.

Ionescu further elaborated on how this could be a good thing, saying, “You almost sometimes have to go through it to be able to understand like what your body needs and you’re able to tell like what you can play through and what you can’t and just set yourself up with the right team of trainers and training and knowing the off season’s long and you got to be able to kind of know what your body needs to get ready for the season and so I told her although it sucks now it’s going to be a blessing in disguise and you just have to stay positively.”

Injuries are a part and parcel of an athlete. You can’t avoid them, but only try and control and reduce their frequency. No matter of work will completely avoid injuries, there will be unfortunate incidents. To be prepared and give it the best conditions to recover is the only thing in your control. The focus should be on the things you can control, and Ionescu learnt from her mistakes and bounced back in a pure Ionescu fashion. Clark will be hoping for a similar comeback from her injuries as she continues her recovery. 

Caitlin Clark Opens Up About the Impact of Age

By general standards, Caitlin Clark is just starting out her life at 23 years old. A non-athlete will be looking to their masters or get their first job, but Clark’s elite athlete status brings her into a special category. She is battling against the world’s best basketball players and putting her body through tremendous stress. This has been the norm for the past 4 years of her life, and it is becoming more physically demanding by the day. 

And this has culminated in her stop-and-start 2025 season. It was right from the word go, as she had a niggle on the first day of training camp. From there to missing multiple games through the groin injury, it has only worsened with time. She recently explained how her 2025 season has affected her in viewing herself differently. 

“This is the first time I haven’t felt like a young body that can run around and sprint every day and just continue to do that,” Clark told Glamour. “Being a professional athlete, you really have to take care of both your body and your mind — it’s been a journey learning about that.”

She is focusing on both the mental and the physical aspects of her recovery as she speaks to the sports psychologist staff sometimes “multiple times a week, to not only talk about basketball but other things in life, and that’s something that’s been important to me over the course of my career.”

And it’s really important to nip the injury to the bud right now as WNBA athletes have an average career span of around 5 years, and most retire by the age of 32. The talent that Clark is maximizing her talent throughout her career will be the primary goal. If she has to endure this again next season, then all the hard work right now will go to waste. It will lead to further regret like Ionescu and impact other aspects of her game. Keeping a patient approach is the way to go, and the Fever and Clark are using every possible treatment method available to her, including innovative approaches such as red-light therapy, dry needling, and hyperbaric oxygen chambers. 

They will hope that this is her last major injury, as they need her back on the court and dropping dimes as soon as possible. Fever coach Stephanie White said she had no update on Clark’s status before the Liberty game, and the team has not provided a timeline. Since it looks like this squad, without Clark, can still get them to the playoffs, the Fever will likely not risk her in the regular season unless she is completely fit and back at her best. The playoffs are a long way away, but that could be one of the approaches depending on the intensity of the injury.