The Indiana Fever’s championship dream has come to an abrupt end this season after falling to the Las Vegas Aces in Game 3 of the first round. However, the team’s third playoff series exit in three seasons seemingly came with an unwanted piece of WNBA history attached, focusing on Caitlin Clark and Aliyah Boston, before WNBA fans dug deeper and found a major wrinkle.

Clark and Boston helped turn Indiana from a perennial lottery team to a playoff contender, but after the Thursday night 94-83 loss to the Aces, the Fever are heading into the offseason without the achievement that was expected of Caitlin Clark and Aliyah Boston when they were paired together. It was pointed out by Underdog on X.

“The Indiana Fever are the first team in WNBA history to have back-to-back No. 1 overall picks NOT win a championship within their first three seasons together,” their post read.

The Fever picked Aliyah Boston out of South Carolina with their 2023 first overall pick, and then went on to pick Caitlin Clark from Iowa with their first overall pick the very next year. After the 2024 draft, ESPN’s Michael Voepel posted a report that prophesied that the Fever, with these two incredibly talented picks, would win a championship by 2028.

The point made does have some precedent. The Seattle Storm were the first team to have consecutive #1 overall picks with Lauren Jackson in 2001 and Sue Bird in 2002, and the pair became the basis of their championship team in 2004.

The Storm did so again with Jewell Loyd and Breanna Stewart, whom they selected in 2015 and 2016, before going on to win the 2018 championship.

Then, the next team to pair two consecutive #1 overall picks was the Las Vegas Aces. This is where the stat becomes contentious.

The San Antonio Stars, the previous incarnation of the Aces, drafted Kelsey Plum in 2017. The team then rebranded and picked #1 in 2018 and 2019, picking A’ja Wilson and Jackie Young, before going on to win the 2022 championship.

It seems like Underdog’s post focused on this interpretation of the record, but it’s clear that many consider the two as the same team, which would mean that the gap between Wilson being drafted and them winning the championship was four seasons, which means that they would be the first team to not meet the post’s criteria instead of the Fever.

Fans immediately caught on to the lapse in the Underdog post, especially since they didn’t clarify their criteria.

WNBA Fans Quickly Picked Apart the Viral Claim About Caitlin Clark and Aliyah Boston

Fans quickly flooded the comments section of the social media post upon realizing how the statistic was worded, with many calling it out for being inaccurate. One such fan pointed to the Aces’ history, highlighting their high draft picks.

“This isn’t true tho aja and Jackie didn’t win their first 3 yrs together they didn’t break through till their 4th yr in 2022,” their comment read.

As pointed out earlier, depending on the interpretation, Vegas is the first team to not win a championship despite having two consecutive #1 overall picks, doing so before the Fever.

Another fan pointed to an interesting wrinkle involving Caitlin Clark herself, focusing on her 2025 season.

“I mean CC didn’t play last year.. so technically no?” the post read.

Caitlin Clark missed most of the 2025 season, and all of the playoffs, leading many fans to question whether it was appropriate to describe the last three seasons of Clark and Boston as a period when they actually played together.

Another fan went further, pointing out how teams having consecutive #1 picks have become less imaginary than the post made them sound.

“For context, back to back 1 picks has occured 4x,” they said.”Seattle 2002 jackson/bird, Seattle 2016 lloyd/Stewart, Indiana 2025 boston/Clark, Wings 2026 buckers/fudd. Aces 2019 had 3 back to back 1sts.
Not exactly a noteworthy statistic.”

That’s where one fan offered the clarification that Underdog might have used for their criteria.

“They were very specific with the wording,” the fan wrote. “It says back to back. Technically Aces had three in a row because Plum was drafted #1 when they were the San Antonio Stars.”

Hilariously, one fan turned the attention to the Dallas Wings, with one fan joking that they were going to join the Fever soon.

“Dallas joining this list soon 😭,” they wrote.

Azzi Fudd and Paige Bueckers became a duo this season when the Wings selected Bueckers’ former college teammate #1 overall in the draft. Though the two have spent only one season together, this fan seems to doubt that the Wings’ core is strong enough to lead them to a championship.

The Fever, on the other hand, drafted Raven Johnson with the tenth overall pick from South Carolina, and the young guard has played some important minutes this season. She played in 39 games, all from the bench, averaging 3.1 points, 1.7 rebounds, and 1.2 assists per game. Her contributions have been important to the Fever securing the sixth seed going into the playoffs. Unfortunately, nothing was enough to hold off the third-seeded Las Vegas Aces.

The Aces, having just defeated the Fever in a 2-1 first-round series, will now face the winners of the Dallas Wings-Golden State Valkyries series, which is currently tied at 1-1. The two teams will face off in a winner-take-all Game 3 on October 2 at the Chase Center as the Valkyries host the Wings.