WNBA legend disregarding Caitlin Clark’s impact on playoff-bound Fever shut down by ESPN analyst

WNBA legend Sheryl Swoopes disregarding Caitlin Clark's impact on playoff-bound Indiana Fever shut down by Elle Duncan.

WNBA legend disregarding Caitlin Clark’s impact on playoff-bound Fever shut down by ESPN analyst

Caitlin Clark and Sheryl Swoopes (image via Open Source/X)

In her first WNBA season, Caitlin Clark has overcome initial disappointment to steer her Indiana Fever to a playoff place. In doing so, she has managed to break records in the process and cement her position as a favorite for the Rookie of the Year award. Except, the legend of the game, Sheryl Swoopes‘ recent comments discredited Clark of her contributions to that playoff run.

But ESPN analyst Elle Duncan saw something in those comments. The analyst took to her podcast, The Elle Duncan Show hosted on ESPN, to talk about what Swoopes said.

https://youtu.be/PxhLNfIzvmo?si=4cg_ikcdXdHq7AL7&t=643 
I love her, but she's wrong here. It just feels like there is something there, and I'm not really sure what is not connecting with Sheryl and why. This feels really, really, really off-par. This doesn't feel right at all, and it is starting to feel a little bit like hate from Sheryl. The Fever, who won a handful of games last year, are in the playoffs this year. You have to understand that a large part of that is Caitlin Clark and Aliyah Boston.
Elle Duncan said

Duncan could not understand what Sheryl Swoopes saw while analyzing the Indiana Fever, especially considering the record from last season. The Fever are two games away from matching their win record from last season. That was with almost the same team as this year. The only differences are the additions of Caitlin Clark and 5th-year veteran Katie Lou Samuelson.

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Sheryl Swoopes attributed Samuelson as the reason for the Fever’s rise up the playoff ladder. A player who played half the minutes and scored less than one-third of the points Clark does. Duncan feels Swoopes might be showing an aversion to Clark despite her scoring 17.1 points and averaging a league-leading 8.2 assists.

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Caitlin Clark’s impact on Fever’s resurgence

Those numbers do show that the rookie is performing at a high level. But it hardly points to the impact Clark has completely had on the Indiana Fever. To understand the background, it must be noted that the Fever, last time had more than 11 wins, was in the 2019 season. Since then, they have not won more than 6 games for three straight seasons. That is with All-Star Kelsey Mitchell in the lineup.

Then last season after Aliyah Boston joined as a rookie, they closed the season with a 13-27 record. This season, they are two wins away from matching that record with 14 games left. If going by their record of games before the Olympics break, the Fever should win at least half of their remaining games. All this shows is that Caitlin Clark has used her ever-improving assist rate to help the entire team score.

Coupled with her scoring, they have been of late a problem for Championship contenders. Clark has elevated the play of the team to that of giant killers. It seems Sheryl Swoopes is choosing to ignore all this.

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