WNBA: Indiana Fever have entered win-now mode around Caitlin Clark

In professional basketball, most rookies need to be brought along slowly, requiring a couple of seasons to find their footing.

Caitlin Clark isn’t like most rookies. The No. 1 overall pick by the Indiana Fever in the 2024 WNBA Draft was thrown into the fire immediately—and delivered one of the best rookie seasons in WNBA history. With 2023 Rookie of the Year Aliyah Boston at center and the No. 2 overall pick of the 2022 draft, NaLyssa Smith, on the wing, the Fever had their young core set, which they could develop with time. But with the season Clark had, why wait?

While you probably won’t find a bigger supporter of Smith’s game than myself, she was not a good fit next to Clark and Boston. Smith is a streaky, high-energy player who needs space under the boards to showcase her full potential, but Boston and Clark are also great rebounders. The three could learn to coexist, but because Boston and Clark are already All-Star players, why wait?

So, the Fever are not waiting. After hiring a new head coach in Stephanie White and retaining two-time All-Star Kelsey Mitchell on a one-year $249,244 supermax deal, the team has been active in the WNBA’s free agency period, swinging trades and signings to put a more experienced, win-now roster around Clark and Boston.

Here’s how Indiana’s three significant additions—Sophie Cunningham, Natasha Howard and DeWanna Bonner—will boost the team into championship contention:

Sophie Cunningham

Cunningham, who the Fever acquired from the Phoenix Mercury as part of the four-team trade that sent Smith to the Dallas Wings, is an experienced shooter—almost four 3-point attempts per game on 36.2 percent accuracy for her career—who will serve as a reliable target for Clark, especially when Lexie Hull and/or Mitchell are not on the court.

Natasha Howard

The 33-year-old Howard not only has an impressive WNBA resume, with two All-Star and two All-Defense honors, in addition to her 2019 Defensive Player of the Year award, but she also has been one of the best players in EuroLeague Women this season. And as her point guard with ÇBK Mersin, Yvonne Anderson, told Swish Appeal, she’ll make Clark’s job easier. As Anderson put it, “[Howard] is an easy assist and I’ll take it every time.”

It’s Howard’s second time on the Fever, the team that originally drafted her No. 5 overall back in 2014. That Fever team was stacked, so Howard didn’t get enough time to develop and was gone after two seasons. Now, three championships and four teams later, Howard is back to prove a point, signing a one-year $214,466 contract as an unrestricted free agent.

DeWanna Bonner

DeWanna Bonner is one of the best players in league history, whose achievements include scoring the third-most points in WNBA history, winning two championships and earning six All-Star nods. Last season, she slightly exceeded her career averages of 15 points and six boards per game on the Connecticut Sun team that eliminated the Fever out of the 2024 playoffs.

There are no downsides to signing Bonner to a one-year $200,000 deal. Even if she does not bring an immediate title to Indiana, she will help establish a winning culture for years to come on a team that hasn’t won a playoff game since 2015.