Caitlin Clark is back, and despite a season-opening loss to the Wings, the Fever have something to build on

INDIANAPOLIS — It was 299 days of frustration and the mental challenges endured under a microscope, exploding from the outstretched knuckles of a first pump and flex. The moment itself was relatively quiet, a blink of an eye in a shootout of a season opener. The reverberations have the chance to be loud.

Because it’s one thing to say Caitlin Clark is back in the sense that she’s healthy and playing again after missing 31 games amid soft tissue injuries a year ago. It’s quite another entirely to say she’s back . A version of the Caitlin Clark, whose likeness sells bundles upon bundles of Little Golden Books at the local downtown comic book shop.

Whose electric downtown buckets in a Gainbridge Fieldhouse house she helped build can turn the tides of the game on a single release. The visionary point guard who can finish atop MVP leaderboards and championships. In one sequence to begin the third quarter of her first WNBA action since July 15, 2025, it was there.

She opened the frame with a 27-foot catch-and-shoot 3-pointer to cut into a nine-point deficit. Never known as a strong defender — and the Dallas Wings knew that on Saturday — she did just enough in the paint to force a stop, sparking the Fever in transition. At the other end, Kelsey Mitchell missed the floater, Aliyah Boston corralled the rebound and eyed a rare sight: a completely wide-open Clark, left alone behind the 3-point line.