It’s been a season for the history books in the WNBA, and Caitlin Clark just keeps adding to it.
Following a magnificent month of August, the Indiana Fever phenom was named the WNBA’s Eastern Conference player of the month, becoming the first-ever rookie to take home the honour.
She joins Larry Bird (Feb. 1980) and Kelvin Ransey (March 1981) as the only players in the NBA or WNBA to be named player of the month as a rookie.
Clark has been on a wicked run of late, averaging 24.0 points, 8.5 assists, 5.2 rebounds and 1.0 steals per game while shooting 46.9 per cent from the field and 37.3 per cent from deep on 9.8 attempts per game in the month of August.
More importantly, perhaps, is that her efforts helped carry the Fever to a 5-1 record in the month and a playoff berth, snapping the WNBA’s longest-ever playoff drought after the franchise hadn’t been to the dance since 2016.
The first-overall pick has been on a tear this year, re-writing record books left and right. She holds the rookie assist record, the most double-doubles by a guard in a season, the single-game assist record, the first triple-double by a rookie in WNBA history, and a running list of other records that needs almost daily updating.
She’s approaching the rookie scoring record, 128 points away from the 744-point record set by Hall-of-Famer Seimone Augustus in 2006. Clark is also only 40 assists away from breaking the single-season assist record of 316 set by Alyssa Thomas of the Connecticut Sun last year.
Her trophy cabinet also seems to keep growing, as she adds the player of the month award to a shelf that already includes three rookie of the month trophies.
As a whole this season, Clark is averaging 18.7 points, 8.4 assists, 5.6 rebounds and 1.4 steals while shooting 42.4 per cent from the field and 34.1 per cent from deep. Her Fever are sitting in third place in the Eastern Conference with a 17-16 record.