Caitlin Clark’s Teammate Loves to Brag About ‘Worst-Timed’ WNBA Moment Around Indiana Fever

It has been a brutal stretch for the Indiana Fever. Just days before the regular season wrapped up, Caitlin Clark confirmed that her year was officially over due to a groin injury that never healed as hoped. The announcement cut deep because she had already missed the All-Star Game in Indianapolis, where she was supposed to serve as captain, and she had only managed 13 games in her second WNBA season. Within hours of the devastating update, the Fever’s social media accounts pushed out team photos that showed Clark smiling in uniform, which many fans immediately felt was out of touch with reality.

The posts came as the Fever sat at 22-20, clinging to the seventh seed in the playoff picture. Clark’s averages of 16.5 points, 8.8 assists, and 5.0 rebounds per game had been carrying Indiana when she was healthy, but now she could only cheer from the sideline. That bittersweet timing of posting cheerful photos just after her season-ending news made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Yet, behind one of the viral snapshots, another Fever star was quietly revealing how the whole thing unfolded. And what’s more, she wasn’t shy about taking credit at all.

On her ‘Show Me Something’ podcast with West Wilson, Sophie Cunningham explained how she orchestrated the infamous injured-players photo that fans could not stop talking about. “When this all started happening, two of the girls were taken out in wheelchairs, and someone else had crutches. I thought of those war pictures from World War I or World War II- that’s exactly what it looked like. They all hated me because they were walking like, ‘Guys, we have to get a picture like this,’ but I made them all come back, and we took it, and it was cute”. For Cunningham, the timing was never really the problem. She admitted she loved bragging about making her teammates- including Clark, Sydney Colson, Aari McDonald, and Chloe Bibby- pose in such a brutally honest moment.

That photo, snapped inside Gainbridge Fieldhouse, showed Cunningham and Colson leaning on crutches, McDonald balancing on a stationary bike due to a broken foot, while Clark and Bibby stood recovering from groin and knee injuries. It spread quickly online because it highlighted just how many key Fever players were sidelined. Cunningham later doubled down on the idea, saying, “My thing is like, this is a crazy season, and it did happen. So, we should just embrace where we’re at. Like this s**** s****, and it is fun in a sick way, and so like live it up a little bit. Who cares?”. That blunt honesty matched the larger picture of an Indiana roster that had been ravaged by injuries but still refused to stop making memories.

The moment also underscored just how off the optics looked when combined with Clark’s heartbreaking announcement. She had told fans on X, “I had hoped to share a better update, but I will not be returning to play this season. I spent hours in the gym every day with the singular goal of getting back out there, disappointed isn’t a big enough word to describe how I am feeling”. Within hours of that raw confession, Fever fans were scrolling through smiling pictures that felt disconnected from the reality of their star’s situation. Cunningham, however, leaned into the humor and humanity of it, making her the unapologetic face of one of the most badly timed WNBA photo drops of the year.

Still, Cunningham’s bragging wasn’t only about laughs. It reflected the strange balance of a Fever team trying to push toward the postseason while its best-known player was sidelined. Indiana ended the regular season with a 24-20 record, its first winning year since 2015, and even picked up a signature victory against the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx with Clark stuck on the bench. But the question moving forward is whether the Fever’s identity is too closely tied to one star. And that’s where the real conversation begins.

Building a brand beyond one star

The Fever are heading to the playoffs without Clark, a storyline that could reshape the way fans and analysts view the franchise. Aerial Powers, one of Indiana’s midseason emergency signings, said, “It’s time to surprise some people (in the playoffs)”. Her strong play helped keep Indiana afloat, but whether that momentum matters to the broader Caitlin Clark fanbase is another story. As podcaster Money Mike bluntly put it, “Caitlin Clark fans don’t care if you win a WNBA championship. Caitlin Clark fans, they don’t care, they love Caitlin Clark, period”.

That observation is hard to argue with when looking at the numbers. The Fever saw their average attendance dip from over 17,000 last year to just under 16,700 this season after Clark went down. The All-Star Game also lost more than a million viewers without her on the floor, dropping from 3.44 million to 2.2 million. Even regular-season viewership trends proved how sharp the “Caitlin Clark effect” is: Sports Business Journal’s Austin Karp highlighted declines of up to 50 percent in WNBA games when she wasn’t playing. These numbers show that much of Indiana’s growth is riding directly on her availability.

The Fever’s front office knows this could be dangerous in the long run. Team president Kelly Krauskopf has said she wants the Fever to be “a leader in the country and an enduring brand like Apple”. To make that happen, the organization has turned to Salesforce’s Agentforce to better understand which fans are loyal to the Fever and which are only tuning in for Clark. Krauskopf insisted, “We want to make sure this isn’t just one moment, that there’s sustainability to the growth”. In other words, Indiana is already thinking about how to build beyond Clark’s shadow. But with Clark sidelined in her sophomore season, the risks of leaning too heavily on her brand have never been clearer.