Locked On Women’s Basketball: Lin Dunn thinks Caitlin Clark, Indiana Fever’s best days are ahead

First, Dunn and Megdal discussed the Fever’s tough schedule so far, which has seen them take on the league’s top teams multiple times in just the first half of the season. For perspective, the Indiana Fever are the only team outside of the top two to have just one game remaining against the league’s two best teams (as of publication), the New York Liberty and Connecticut Sun.

“[The league] dealt us, I’ll say, just a really tough schedule,” Dunn said. “And I think early on, you know, when we’re playing Connecticut twice, New York twice, Vegas twice, it’s like what is going on? But we never panicked and I give our players and our coaches, everyone a great deal of credit because we were going through a tough period of time, it was a lot of adversity, playing the best teams in the league and playing many of them on the road and back-to-back. We had already finished our back-to-backs in, I don’t know, the first month of the season.”

Then, the two discussed the amount of work it has taken for the Indiana Fever to find their feet after a difficult start, and how Indiana’s players have found their groove. They also discussed how improving the team’s access to training facilities and dedicated areas has improved their morale, free agency and overall outlook.

“People don’t understand that growth takes time,” Dunn said. “And so over a period of time, Caitlin Clark had to adjust to the physicality of the league. She had to adjust that she was going to be guarded every night, by everybody’s number one toughest defender. I mean, look who’s guarded her: [Kahleah Copper], Betnijah Laney, [Dijonai Carrington], whoever your top defensive guard is, they’re going to be all over Clark from the get go, not to mention the traps and the double teams and the switches. And so it was a learning curve for her and I am very impressed with how she grew through that period of time, and became very mentally and physically tough with the things that were thrown at her.”

“And then during that period of time, she and Boston are learning how to play together. And then also, Kelsey Mitchell is learning how to benefit from the fact that Caitlin now has the number one defender on her, and the number two or three defender is on [Mitchell] instead of the number one [defender], and so that’s creating opportunities for her to get open that she hasn’t had a lot of in the past … And so I think where we are right now is exactly the type goals that we had, it was can we get better? … Can we compete every night, no matter who we’re playing …? And then, can we fight as we go along for a playoff berth? That’s what this team is trying to do.”

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“Three years ago, we were the last in the league. And then we were next to last in the league. And now we’re, last year, we were 10th. And now we’re trying to get to 6-7-8. So it’s a process that can only happen through free agency, drafts or trades,” Dunn explained. “Well, when you’re us, and you spend three years out of your building, it’s tough with free agency. You know, people say, ‘Well, why haven’t you secured better free agents?’ Well, we didn’t have a building, we’re playing in the barn at the state fair, or we’re playing who knows where and so that’s difficult now. Now, we’re past that. Now we’re in our beautiful facility, our brand new locker room, we have something unique that other teams do not have. Everything is right there in that facility, we have access to four courts. Not one, not two, not three, but four! So we’re on a plan here to get back into playoffs and then eventually be challenging for championships just like we did when we had Tamika Catchings.”

Tune in to hear more from Dunn and Megdal about the Indiana Fever and their winding road back to the WNBA playoffs, how Kelsey Mitchell’s game keeps evolving, and more. Make sure to subscribe to the Locked On Women’s Basketball podcast to keep learning about the WNBA, women’s college basketball, basketball history and much more!