WNBA picks: Sky vs. Fever best bets from proven experts include Caitlin Clark prop

The Chicago Sky and Indiana Fever match up Saturday, May 17 to begin the 2025 WNBA season, once again pitting Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese against one another as the league tries to build up the professional rivalry between the two young stars. Clark, the odds-on favorite to win WNBA MVP, is coming off a Rookie of the Year campaign where she averaged 19.2 points, 8.4 assists and 5.4 rebounds per game. Reese set a record for most consecutive double-doubles in a season with 15. She also had a three-game stretch where she pulled down at least 20 rebounds per game, something no WNBA player had ever done. Reese averaged 13.6 points and 13.1 rebounds in her rookie season, but she also panned those who felt Clark was the sole reason for the league’s growing popularity. Reese sidestepped a question regarding her comments at a preseason news conference, adding yet another layer to this rivalry. Indiana won three of the four meetings between the two teams a season ago.

The Fever are 7.5-point favorites at DraftKings Sportsbook, priced at -325 (wager $325 to win $100) on the money line. The Sky are +260 (wager $100 to win $260) underdogs, and the total comes in at 166.5. 

Before you lock in any bets of your own, make sure to check out the best plays from experts Calvin Wetzel and Aaron Barzilai. Barzilai is a Ph.D. from Stanford who served as Director of Basketball Analytics for the Philadelphia 76ers. Five years ago, he founded HerHoopStats.com — a groundbreaking website that unlocks insights about the women’s game. Wetzel, the site’s lead betting writer, incorporates his mathematical background and strong knowledge of women’s hoops to turn the site’s prediction model into picks. Wetzel and Barzilai went 202-111-2 (+57.9 units) during the 2024 WNBA season and posted a 147-88-1 (+47.1 units) during the 2024-25 NCAA season. In the 2023 WNBA season, they finished 238-185-1 (+29.5 units). 

Here are Barzilai and Wetzel’s picks for Fever vs. Sky Saturday:

Fever -7.5 (lean Over 166.5)

While Chicago did make some improvements over the offseason by bringing in Ariel Atkins and Courtney Vandersloot among others, Indiana made upgrades of its own with DeWanna Bonner, Natasha Howard and Sophie Cunningham. Those moves should help the Over more than anything but on paper the Fever look to have taken at least as much if not more of a jump than the Sky.

This -7.5 would have been a little low even last season, so take it with more confidence now and ride the Over or the Fever team total Over in the first game for this new-look offense in Clark’s second season.

Caitlin Clark Over 30.5 points + assists (-106)

Speaking of Clark, her first full offseason since after her junior year of college has surely done wonders for her. Unlike last year when we faded her to open the season, this year we’re kicking things off by betting on her.

In 2024 after the Olympic break – Clark’s first significant break in almost a year – she cleared this points + assists line in nine of her next 13 before finishing the season playing under 20 minutes in a meaningless game in which the Fever were locked into their playoff seed. We should see that late-season version of Clark, if not an even better version, to start 2025, so grab this line while it’s still barely above 30.