Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark has broken yet another WNBA record for the most rookie assists in a single season.
Clark, 22, currently leads in the WNBA with an average of 8.3 assists per Game. She racked up nine assists in the Fever’s Sunday, August 18, Game against the Seattle Storm, which the Fever won 92-75. Clark now has a total of 232 assists in her rookie season, surpassing Ticha Penicheiro’s rookie record of 224, set in 1994.
“If you’d told me I was going to lead the league in assists coming in here in my rookie season, I probably would have told you that you were lying,” Clark shared in a postgame interview on Sunday, as reported by ESPN. “But I take a lot of pride in that. I want to set my teammates up first and foremost because that’s going to help you have the most successful team.”
Along with her nine assists, Clark personally scored 23 points for the Fever and notched five rebounds and two blocks. “I’m always looking for my teaMMAtes in transition, that’s where I tend to thrive the most,” she added.
Clark also took the time after Sunday’s Game to praise Penicheiro, who played for the now-defunct San Francisco Monarchs between 1998 and 2009 and finished her WNBA career with a total of 2,600 assists in 2012.
“If you watch her highlights, she was definitely a better passer than me,” Clark said of Penicheiro, now 49, on Sunday. “She had way more flair to her Game. She would spin around and make these crazy passes. I kind of just run in transition and chuck it up there and hope for the best.”
Before Clark, Penichiero had the third-most assists for a rookie in a single WNBA season. The top WNBA assist record in a single season is held by Alyssa Thomas of the Connecticut Sun, who set the record in 2023 with 316 assists in 40 games.
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Lisa Rinna Said This $15 Hyaluronic Acid Serum is ‘Lovely!’ View DealClark has so far had a record-making and -breaking rookie season. In a July 6 game against the New York Liberty, she landed the first triple-double of her career and the first triple-double for any rookie in WNBA history.
As for the Fever, the team is set to play the Minnesota Lynx on Saturday, August 24.
“I think we just have a really balanced attack,” said Fever guard Lexie Hull on Sunday. “It’s just really fun to watch when you have Caitlin running in transition — the ball can go anywhere, anyone can knock it down, our offense is just so fluid.”
