Caitlin Clark hardly dominant halfway through her first WNBA season

Caitlin Clark had some serious RAF. That’s short for the just-made-up-now Resting Annoyed Face. 

There seemed to be few moments during the Fever’s 89-77 loss to the Storm on Thursday when the rookie was feeling joy. 

It’s certainly understandable. Her team sits in eighth place in the WNBA standings after losing its second straight. Indiana (7-12) also has yet to beat a team with a record better than .400 this season, regularly getting hammered by the league’s elite teams. 

There also is the very real issue of her teammates struggling to make open shots within 5 feet of the basket, a regular occurrence Thursday. But perhaps more irritating than anything is the fact that she has been unable to take over a game when her squad needs her to. 

That was one of Clark’s signature traits during her time at Iowa, where she went to back-to-back national championship games while setting the all-time scoring record in college basketball. If they needed a bucket or an impeccable setup for one, the Hawkeyes put the rock in Caitlin’s hands. 

The Fever, however, can’t do it. Not yet, at least. 

It didn’t look like you were having a lot of fun out there, a reporter said to Clark. 

“We’re competitors and we want to win, and it didn’t really feel great out there, even when we cut it to nine,” said Clark, who finished with 15 points, seven assists and six rebounds. “We want to win more than anybody. This is our job. … We’re trying to give it our all so we’re not going to be out there smiling when we’re down by 15.”

The ideal outcome for a Storm fan at a Clark game, which sported another sellout crowd at Climate Pledge Arena, is probably a Seattle win mixed with a college-days performance from Caitlin. And for a while there Thursday, it looked as though the attendees were going to get just that. 

The Storm (11-6) established an early lead and went into halftime up by 14, but Clark had 12 points through the first 20 minutes and knocked down three three-pointers. A couple of those triples were at least 5 feet behind the arc, too. 

It was exactly the version of Clark that folks had paid to see. The only problem is that she didn’t make another field goal for the rest of the game. 

It seemed as though the Storm’s second-half strategy was to deny Clark any daylight from deep, throw double teams at her when she drove and make her teammates beat them. And since Clark appears to be surrounded by one of the more futile supporting casts in the league, her teammates are rarely going to beat a team on the Storm’s level. 

Missed layups were abundant, particularly from last year’s No. 1 overall pick, Aliyah Boston. But this was not a game in which Caitlin could blame her teammates, even if she were the type to ever do so. The fact is that Clark is displaying certain limitations as she nears the halfway point of her first WNBA season. Yes, she helped Indiana go from 1-8 to 7-10 before dropping these last two, but she’s hardly dominant. 

Turnovers continue to be an issue, and she had a game-high six of them on Thursday. Her 5.6 turnovers per game are 1.7 more than anyone else in the league, and hardly offsets her 6.6 assists, which are third in the league. Many of these are avoidable, and can make her an offensive liability despite the 16.3 points and 5.4 rebounds she is averaging. 

Whether it is to her credit or detriment, Clark didn’t force the issue. There weren’t a lot of errant second-half shots from her Thursday, but only because she took just two second-half shots.

Storm coach Noelle Quinn commended Caitlin’s ability to pass the ball early while blitzing her on ball screens, but also noted that taking the ball out of her hands made her less assertive down the stretch. Clark knows that. 

“I could definitely be a little bit more aggressive to the basket,” Clark said.

But then she added: “When you get blitzed you’re just going to have to give the ball up. That’s just how it rolls.” 

There was just one team out there that’s really rollin’, and that’s the Storm, who have won 10 of their past 13 and just got 34 points from Jewell Loyd. The Clark-led Fever have yet to prove they can compete with the league’s best.

That explains that resting look on Caitlin’s face. The good news for the league? She’s not gonna rest till she figures it out.