The Indiana Fever have started 0-5 in Caitlin Clark’s rookie year, but ESPN analyst Andraya Carter is not sounding the alarm bells.
Carter spoke to The Post in a phone interview Thursday about Clark’s trajectory in the WNBA — what has gone well and what could be improved upon — and whether opponents have been singling her out with extra physicality because of the attention she has garnered coming into the league.
“I think Caitlin is doing a phenomenal job. She came into the league with so much pressure — like, literal pressure from the defenses, which are dedicated to stopping her — and eyes on her,” Carter said before the Clark’s Fever faced the Sparks on Friday night in Los Angeles.
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“In all games but her first one, she’s had at least five assists, so I’ve been really impressed by her ability to find her teammates. Her ability to read the defense and put the ball where it needs to be is only going to get better.”
The Fever lost their season opener against the Sun in a 92-71 blowout, but were in it until the final minute earlier this week in an 88-84 final.
“Obviously, the turnovers are alarming at first when you look at the numbers, but the improvement that she made from the first time against the Connecticut Sun to the rematch was remarkable,” Carter said.
“She faced one of the top defenses — if not the top defense — in the WNBA in two of her first four games. It’s a really hard sample size to judge off of because four of her first five games were against the Sun and Liberty, two of the best franchises in the league.”
Clark is averaging 17.8 points, 5.8 assists and 4.6 rebounds per game.
Carter said she is “hanging my hat” on Clark’s “improvement, her connection to teammates, her ability to get back up when she gets knocked down and her ability to literally get back on the court when she was injured and rolled her ankle against the Sun.”
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“Her resilience, her fight and her competitive spirit — she’s out there and she wants to win,” Carter said.
“She could easily be out there with the attitude that, ‘No one expects us to win, we’re not top-to-bottom as talented a team, we’re building for the future,’ but it looks like she wants to win right now. She’s frustrated that it’s not happening and that’s OK. That competitive spirit is what’s going to lead to success for this team.”
Carter, 30, starred at Tennessee from 2013-15, but was forced to retire from basketball because of injuries.
She has had a meteoric rise over the last several years at ESPN and this past March drew acclaim as an analyst on the network’s studio coverage of the women’s NCAA Tournament.
When Clark’s frustrations boiled over in Monday’s close loss against the Sun, she drew a technical foul for lashing out at the officials.
This was not, in and of itself, concerning to Carter.
“That happens to a lot of players. Players get technical fouls in the heat of the moment. I wouldn’t even say that’s a rookie mistake. That’s a mistake veterans make,” Carter said.
“For me, I think her resilience, and her improvement when she sees a team a second time, her fight and the way her teammates rally around her — Caitlin will continue to build on all those things.”
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As far as the doggedness that Clark is receiving from opposing defenses, there have been times that she’s been plowed through on screens.
Carter believed that Clark’s opponents are not singling her out to pummel her, but that this is the reality of ultra-physical play in the WNBA.
“I think that’s just the WNBA, to be honest,” Carter said, pointing out that recent Sparks-Aces and Aces-Mercury games were slugfests.
“There’s physicality all the time in this league. People check each other and people hit each other. That Sparks-Aces game was extremely physical. Checking on screens, hitting on screens. You have to think about it: There’s only 12 teams in the league, so there comes a time where these teams are very competitive with each other. It’s just how it is when you see teams over and over.
“There are a lot of eyes on it when it happens with Caitlin because there’s a lot more eyes on her in general, but the screen Breanna Stewart hit on her — she didn’t lean or shift into her or throw her arms out. It was literally just a screen. The speed at which you run into a screen is also going to determine its impact. If she has no idea a screen is coming, because her teammates didn’t call it out and her head wasn’t on a swivel, she’s going to run into it really hard.”
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Carter said she believes this was another area Clark would improve upon with more professional experience.
“When you’re in the league longer, you learn to avoid screens. And when you play with your team longer, the chemistry comes where the communication is at a high level where you can avoid screens and no they’re coming,” Carter said.
“To me [backlash to Stewart’s screen on Clark] was people making something out of nothing. I don’t think that someone’s gone out of their way to hit Caitlin.
“Do I think that people put their best effort into defending Caitlin? Yes. But the idea that they’re being more physical on her than they would be on someone else, I think this league’s just physical.”
