INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark will be getting another opinion on her right groin injury, coach Stephanie White said Sunday as the team returned to practice.
Those evaluations and meetings with doctors will paint a clearer picture on how long her recovery will take, and White already said she doesn’t anticipate Clark to play against New York on Tuesday. Clark, along with fellow All-Stars Aliyah Boston and Kelsey Mitchell, weren’t at practice Sunday afternoon so they could rest after the All-Star Game.
“She’s going to see some doctors and get some more tests around early in the week,” White said. “You know, I don’t expect her to be available on Tuesday, so we’re just going to continue to take it one day at a time and let her get her evaluations early this week and then once we’ve done that, hopefully we’ll have a clear line of what it looks like.”
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Clark suffered the right groin injury on July 15 against the Connecticut Sun in Boston. While it’s unclear specifically when she suffered the injury, she was in visible discomfort with about 30 seconds left in the game after a bounce-pass assist to Mitchell. She twisted to get away from defender Leila Lacan, then twisted to bounce the ball to Mitchell, then turned around and immediately grabbed her her right upper-thigh groin area, tears already welling up in her eyes.
She got some imaging in New York, where the Fever played the Liberty on July 16, and was ruled out for that game.
This is the fourth muscle injury for Clark this season, which has caused her to miss 11 of the Fever’s 23 regular season games along with the Commissioner’s Cup. Clark missed the Fever’s preseason opener with left quad tightness, then suffered a left quad strain May 24 against the Liberty. She missed five games with the quad strain.
Then, shortly after returning from the quad strain, she suffered a left groin injury that kept her out another five games. She played four games in her return from that injury before this fourth injury popped up.
Clark had to pull out of the 3-point contest and the All-Star game, where she was a captain in her home city, because of her most recent injury. It’s been a frustrating few months for the star guard but she’s trying to take a positive approach as much as possible.
“When the injury happened, it was pretty frustrating, considering, I knew what the coming days were gonna hold for myself,” Clark said Saturday ahead of the All-Star Game. “But I feel like dealing with that, and then also just like trying to look at it in the most positive manner that I can. … I think just it all comes back to having good perspective on everything.”
Chloe Peterson is the Indiana Fever beat reporter for IndyStar. Reach her at capeterson@gannett.com or follow her on X at @chloepeterson67.
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