Caitlin Clark injury impact: How many games Fever star could miss as she falls out of top spot in MVP odds

Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever are off to a 2-2 start to the 2025 WNBA season and they carry lofty expectations of being a title contender after a busy offseason building around the reigning Rookie of the Year. 

The first four games showed both the strides they’ve taken forward and where they still need to get to in order to be among the title contender class, but now they will have to navigate a stretch without their star after the team announced Clark would miss at least two weeks with a left quad strain. 

The challenge of any muscle strain is that they are easy to aggravate, and given the Fever’s long-term goals, they will likely err on the side of caution when it comes to their star player’s return. With that in mind, we wanted to take a look at the impact of Clark’s injury on the Fever, the MVP race and the early season standings. 

How many games will Clark miss? 

The two-week timetable until the next evaluation means Clark will, at minimum, sit out until June 9 and miss their next four games: 

The biggest of those games from a national perspective is their next game against Angel Reese and the Chicago Sky, as the budding rivalry between the two teams will take a considerable hit with Clark’s absence. The Mystics, meanwhile, get a bit of a break as they’ll get a chance to play the Clark-less Fever twice, which makes them a far more vulnerable opponent. 

As any basketball fan knows, a two-week minimum timetable does not guarantee a return to action exactly two weeks later. Muscle strains are particularly fickle injuries, and the Fever will almost assuredly play it cautious with Clark early in the season to try and ensure this doesn’t become a lingering issue throughout the year. 

If it were to stretch to a three-week timetable, she would also miss a road trip to Atlanta to face the Dream on June 10 and a home game against the defending champs in the New York Liberty on June 13. 

WNBA MVP race impact

Clark was the betting favorite at some sportsbooks prior to the injury, but odds have shifted due to her impending absence and bettors quickly jumped on Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier’s odds. 

Collier is now the favorite after her strong start to the year at both FanDuel (-140) and DraftKings (-115). Clark started the day as the favorite, but the injury news has seen her odds drop from being the even-money favorite to +210 at FanDuel and +150 at DraftKings within 30 minutes of the injury announcement dropping. 

That’s a considerable change, not because Collier isn’t worthy as the favorite (she was the MVP runner-up last year and is off to a sensational start to the season), but because sportsbooks have on a ton of liability on Clark odds and do not move her down lightly because of the volume of bets they take in on her compared to other players. The more games Clark misses, the more ground she will need to make up, and the uncertainty of her timetable for a return has led them to shift her down to second on the odds sheet. 

How will the Fever respond to Clark’s absence? 

For as much as Clark’s scoring gets discussed (and she is leading the team at 19 points per game), the Fever have capable scorers on the roster who can help fill that void by committee. Kelsey Mitchell (17.8 ppg) will step into the lead role again in the backcourt, while Lexie Hull (10.0 ppg) and Sophie Cunningham (7.0 ppg) likewise will see increased minutes with Clark out to help provide shooting. In the frontcourt, Aliyah Boston (18.5 ppg) and Natasha Howard (13.3 ppg) will be leaned on heavily, and the Fever will hope DeWanna Bonner (2.5 ppg) can shake free of her early season struggles to help pick up the slack. 

The bigger challenge will be from a creative perspective, as Clark’s 9.3 assists per game are seven more than the next highest on the team — a tie at 2.3 apg between Mitchell and Boston. Mitchell being on-ball more will bring her assist total up, but they’ll need to find other ways to get into actions and create offensive flow because they no longer have their floor general leading the way. They’ll need to lean on the group as a whole to fill that creative void, and expect the Fever’s offense to look quite different in the next two-plus week’s with Clark out as they try to come up with ways to create good looks as a team without their star guard. 

WNBA standings and playoff race impact

It’s early, which is the good news for Indiana, but in a 44-game season, having your star miss at least four and potentially more games accounts for 10% of the season. Right now the Fever are tied with the Las Vegas Aces for seventh in the WNBA at 2-2, and the four games they are guaranteed to play without Clark will all be against teams below .500. 

The two toughest games of that group figure to be against the young, upstart Mystics, who are 2-3 and have been competitive in each of their five games — all decided by six or fewer points. From there the game against the Sky will be an opportunity for Chicago to try and pick a game off against a rival and avenge their blowout loss from the season opener. If Clark’s absence extends to three weeks, the games against the undefeated Liberty and the 3-2 Dream would be far more difficult. 

The Fever should be trying to at least tread water and remain at .500 until Clark is back in the lineup. Given the schedule, that’s a reasonable fair goal. This was supposed to be a stretch of the season they could take advantage of and climb the standings, which could provide an opportunity for teams around them and ahead of them to try and create a bit of separation. 

On the flip side, there’s a chance for the Fever to use Clark’s absence as an opportunity to build some confidence as a team and get everyone around Clark into a rhythm for when she comes back. They still have plenty of talent and if they can go 3-1 or 4-0 in those first four games without Clark, it would go a long way in giving this team the belief that they have what it takes to be a legitimate contender this year.