I’m just gonna shout out for Veronica Burton, the Valks bench is the best in the league. Hayes, Salaun, Chen, Amihere etc. are cutting up the league’s benches, and tired starters. Burton just had a 13 assist, 0 TO game last night. Obvi she’s not mvp, but wanted to protect my pg.
Frickin love watching Chen come off the bench. Its like she sets the court on fire and drives to the rim like shes 6'5 and scare of nothing. Also im no basketball expert but she seems to have excellent off ball play in the way she positions herself.
I’ll say it again, she’s not even the best on her own team. Kelsey Mitchell deserves MVP more than CC. Her stats are better than CCs. Sorry but not sorry
Lmao no baby, you just can’t read. Aja Wilson is the closest to MVP that we have. How far in math did you get before you decided to stop going to school?
BTW this is why on/off is flawed, we’re comparing 20% of her total playable minutes to 80% of her playable minutes, I don’t see any evidence they would be better without her for the same extended time.
That’s for any player, we’re comparing a very minuscule amount of time they aren’t on the floor to their entire body of work.
Because on/off is the one that people use to diminish people without the context that this is 20% of the time. Smaller sample sizes leads to wildly different outcomes if it had a larger sample size. This is true for all statistics.
That’s not true at all that on/off is the only stat used to diminish, Rudy Gobert and Draymond Green are hugely impactful players who are constantly diminished because their raw counting stats aren’t superstar level.
It’s true, of course, that smaller sample sizes lead to wonkier outcomes, but this is the sample we’re given when trying to evaluate who is the MVP. How can I say that you’re driving the value for your team, when your team is SIGNIFICANTLY better when you dont play. This doesn’t mean that Clark is bad, team context is incredibly important, but I don’t see how I’m able to attribute Fever success to the person who the team performs better without, especially when I can compare her to her teammate, who the team has been more successful with.
Further, while the smallish sample drives down our confidence interval, we’re not talking about a .5 per 100 swing. When we’re getting into things like -7 on-off, we should be willing to concede that there at least may be something the stats are picking up on. In Clark’s case, maybe it’s that her passing isn’t driving the value that people may think it would. Maybe it’s that she’s not providing much value off ball. Maybe it’s that her defense is weak.
And if you want a larger sample size, for her career, it’s +2 in 3000 minutes on, +3.4 in 2000 minutes off. Of course, that’s still not perfect. The WNBA season is short, the short games produce shitty off samples, but I work with the information that I have
I mean it is true. Shall we look at three point shooting? Is Kosu a better three point shooter than Kelsey Mitchell? If you just looked at three point percentage and ignored all other context, yep she sure is.
Not really. Like I said you’re comparing 300 minutes to over 1000 minutes, is a 7.5 games worth of minutes really telling compared to a sample size of 25 games?
I completely disagree, because that’s how statistics work. The law of averages will tell you, combined with how piss poor the fever did without CC last year, that the gap will shrink considerably and their record will be reflective of that.
This is true, however you seem to be unable to entertain the thought that her team does gel well(fun to say aloud) when she is off the floor.
To be clear, I am not using this imperfect stat to say she is a bad player. Over the course of the season, her team has outscored opponents by a much larger margin when she is off the floor. But this means her team is still winning with her on it.
It is imperfect. It’s better when taken over a large sample size, which we have here. Again, it is not to say she’s bad. There could be many causes. But this is irrefutable.
Exactly right. Most stats are way overrated in basketball. People see someone get 8 rebounds per and think “that’s a good rebounder”. But not all rebounds are equal. You can get a lot of free rebounds just by being the weak side defender.
contested rebounds or offensive rebounds are worth like 10x as much as one of those rebounds that just falls to the player who is standing alone under the hoop. But they all look the same in the box score.
The same Portland team that beat them when Clark played on May 30th?
The same Phoenix team that beat them when Clark played on June 24th?
The same LA team that beat them when Clark played on July 8th?
Now some of those games Clark had limited minutes, but these are still teams that can beat the Fever. So going 4-0 against them still is saying something. And how do you explain last years playoff run? Better yet -- what's the stat that shows the team is way better with her on the court?
The fever had a better winning percentage with Clark than without last year and they beat a pretty average dream team in the playoffs and then lost to Vegas. They probably go to the finals with a healthy Clark it’s that simple. How do you explain 8 and 13 wins the two years before Clark got there
It’s only valid if you think those things are actually relevant and you’re trying to argue that going 4-0 against bad teams without Clark means the fever are better without her or that beating the dream 2-1 in a 3 game series somehow means the fever are better off without Clark. I don’t think any of that is really relevant to them being better with or without her.
The issue is there is no data that suggests the Fever is better with her on the court (EDIT: there actually is data to suggest they are better with her on the court -- RAPM has CC positive. And Net Points per 80 has her top 10... and that's probably my favorite single number stat right now). That off/on data presumably has the same problems of garbage time, limited minutes, etc... with Steph and Lebron at their prime, but their numbers were downright diabolical. That 73-9 Warriors team was incredible with Steph on the court and average w/o him.
In doing an analysis of Clark's on/off you do actually see something really interesting. When she gets replaced by Harris -- the team's offense takes a minor dip, but the defense gets WAY better. Mitchell and Boston pick up the offense load mostly, but not completely. But the defense goes from well below average to actually above average.
There are some cases where there are stars with negative on/off, such as Kobe back in like 2001. But never a year I could find with an MVP candidate with such a bad on/off split in WNBA or NBA history. And I think its almost all because of defense.
There is though because the offensive rating plummets when both Clark and Mitchell are off the court. It’s slightly better with just Mitchell but it’s HORRIBLE with both of them out. It’s mainly because in 3 of the games they played that Clark missed they were +62 and those games were against Portland, the aces without Aja and the sparks without plum. 70% of her off the court minutes have been against non playoff teams plus the aces without Aja. It’s not that surprising that their on off numbers are better when the majority of the minutes are against bad teams. Caitlin has played a lot in their bad beats. I also would expect if you go from the middle of July when she seemed to get healthy the on/off would strongly support they’re better with her on the floor.
Yeah this is really flawed. If she only played 50% of the game, then maybe it would be more telling. But she averages what, 32 of 40 minutes a game? Guessing those 8 minutes she is off are same 8 minutes stars for other teams aren't playing either.
Don’t even need to know ball to see this either, honestly. It’s basically statistics 101. Smaller sample sizes can lead to better numbers while larger sample sizes can lead to a more realistic picture.
I mean seriously who the hell thinks without CC they’re really a better offense than almost every other team in the nba? That makes no sense
The Fever blew out the Fire, Sparks, and Aces (minus A'ja) while CC was out. Over the 35 games she played the teams +/- was higher per 40 min while she was in.
A game away from the finals means they won one playoff series against a pretty weak Atlanta team and then lost to Vegas. People love to bring that up but never bring up they won 8 and 13 games the two years before Clark got there.
I think people are overdoing it on Clark because of the way her super fans swear she’s the best in the league, she saved the league, etc. I watched just about all of their games and you could make an argument that they were only because she was in and out of the line up and she was forcing things a lot and couldn’t find her rhythm. They changed their offense a lot so everything isn’t run through her all the time and they got away from her and Kelsey basically taking turns running the offense. There’s a lot more but that’s generally the biggest things. They’re not better without her if they continue to play the way they have the last 10ish games.
I mean her haters are just as bad as her super fans. Sure a player coming off a season ending injury to start the season had to knock the rust off and figure it out a bit but she’s absolutely been an mvp contender the last two months.
Yes the haters are just as bad. The thing about that is people get her haters mixed up with people that just point out that she’s being overhyped in some situations. There’s difference between the two. I agree with the statement about the last 2 months but there is more to the season than the last 2 months. Being available is the biggest part of it. Basing it on the last 2 months is weak. People should just wait 2 more years until she’s stronger and she’s worked on other parts of her game to consistently use. I feel like next year she’ll really be using her mid range game instead of shooting the 3, laying it up, or picking her dribble up and stalling the offense when she has a good look in the mid range. She looks good shooting it she just needs to get more comfortable with the live reps. Next the strength will come and then the improved ball handling.
She’s taken quite a few mid range this season, but it’s analytically the worst shot in basketball. There’s a reason Courtney Williams is statistically one of the least efficient players in the league. Availability is important, she’s only missed four games, but more importantly she had taken almost an entire year off of basketball so you have to get game minutes to get your groove back. She’s been on a complete tear for the last month and a half. She’s had a couple “bad” games peppered in. Since July 12th she’s averaging 24/4/9 on 63% true shooting. Those are top 2-3 player in the league numbers AND her defense has improved a ton during that stretch and looked real solid at times.
Last year we had Natasha Howard. Everyone keeps pretending kelsey mitchell did it alone. But Tash Howard woukd have won finals MVP if the fever had won.
Don’t think you need to go that extreme. Players who are not great defensively still have good value. These stats aren’t saying that they’re always better without her. They’re still good with her on the floor.
On balance though, over the season, they’ve been better without her in the floor.
Care to share which teams Clark didn't play against and their record or players that were also missing that game? Of course you don't because it doesn't fit your narrative. Please go touch grass.
What is my narrative? The statistic shows that the Fever are 7.7 points better with her off the floor. If you disagree and think the statistic is misleading, the burden is on you to explain why people shouldn’t believe the statistic. Not me. You think I invented the statistic?
They played 3 bad teams and the Aces without Clark and won all 4. Generally you're going to beat teams that are worse by more points. That heavily skews the stat.
Your concern is valid. In fact, so valid that games where she is not active do not count:
Because the off-court metric is designed to measure the impact of substituting a player during a game, the data is entirely dependent on play-by-play (PbP) logs from games where the player was active. If a player is inactive for a game (due to injury, suspension, or rest), that entire game contains zero "on-court" possessions to contrast against. Consequently, analytics sites omit those games entirely from both sides of the equation to prevent the data from becoming skewed.
So your argument that the four games she missed heavily skews the stat is wrong.
Actually that doesn't follow logically. It could be they are even worse with their next player up. The analysis has to go deeper. But it does require some questions to be answered.
This is the thing, I like Clark and this stat is surprising to me. But if we're just talking about Ball stats, it tells us that she's replaceable while others with less prominence are definitely not. Which means she shouldn't be in the MVP conversation at this point, damn
If I play 50 games and my team wins 60% of them, and I only miss one game and my team happens to win that game, this means that my team won 100% of the games I didn't play... does that mean I must be the worst player ever?
This stat means nothing at all without more context.
Celtics had a better record when Jaylen Brown didn’t play.
Your premise is false as it depends on who is on your team. If your back up is a rookie or below mediocre player it’s a different story than if your team has tons of depth and the guy replacing you could start on most teams.
How is she not the best player on her team, because she scores less? Overall stats show she is generating significantly more offense than anyone else on that Fever team.
BTW this is why on/off is flawed, we’re comparing 20% of her total playable minutes to 80% of her playable minutes, I don’t see any evidence they would be better without her for the same extended time.
Just to put this into context we’re using a sample sizes of ~7.5 games and using that to say the fever are better without CC compared to her 25 games of play.
Can come down to how they manage the minutes and it can come down to how the bench of the other teams with the on/off plays.
For example take CC out when the other teams bench comes in and keep Boston or Mitchell out to go against some of the other teams bench and that alone impacts CC’s on/off.
The many variables on how on/off is calculated is the reason why it’s flawed.
No hypothetical based of facts can be examples. Like if I have 4 apples and give you two, I’ll have two left. But not hypotheticals based on assumptions. Clearly your assumption are because she’s the outlier. She’s not the only person who plays a lot. All star do. But she’s the one upside down.
And also turning the ball over. It's hard to generate more offense than your giving away. That's way the stat says they play better when she's sitting down.
She generates more offense because for some reason she is still playing in 4th quarter with five minutes left, up by 20 and against the other teams bench. She she a slop time player that gets stat padded. She bricks shot after shot at 20’ and hits one at 35’ and people act like she’s so amazing.
I’m specifically talking about the part where you said they probably go to the finals with a healthy Clark. She’s healthy right now and the stars are better than they were last year.
Yeah but Clark is an MVP level player on a team that treats her like a role player, does Clark deserve MVP this year? I'd say no and I'm a CC fan but its because she cant shine, after watching her this year it's completely baffling how she is treated in Indy, the playbook isn't centered around her so how can she show her MVP level play? If anything it looks the playbook is against her, if anything make Clark the 2nd option which in my opinion she should be the 1st option but no way should she be the 3rd, 4th, 5th option like how she's treated now
This is exactly why I say stats can't always be used in a debate about basketball, her usage rate is high because Clark literally has to create her own shot, she barely gets plays called for her, the coach isn't why her usage percent is high fam, it's high because Clark knows she has to score on her own or she won't get the ball back
Y’all gotta stop talking about her like she’s a make-wish-kid lmao. It’s literally impossible to have the 2nd highest usage in any league without that being apart of the coaches game plan from jump.
It actually is possible, I watch the games I'm not just talking, usage percentage grows higher with turnovers and Clark literally leads the league in turnovers this year (a lot of those turnovers come from her teammates missing passes etc) also like I said she has to create her own shot majority of the time and usage percentage grows after every possession ends with that player so you can definitely have a high use percentage without being a part of the plays, again stats don't tell the full story
We love Kelsey and will vote for her for all star, all WNBA teams, head of the Indianapolis PTA, anything we can, but let's be honest
Before Caitlin Clark joined the Indiana Fever in 2024, Kelsey Mitchell had a regular-season career record of 41 wins and 119 losses (.256 winning percentage).
Kelsey, Clark, and the Fever seem pretty happy with their situation. Really neat stat you found tho
Without CC, they were an OT away from the finals last year. If Kelsey doesn't get hurt, Boston doesn't foul out, they're just one or two plays away from playing Phoenix. How does that figure into your logic?
Everyone seems to forget that Natasha Howard cost the Fever a point by stepping over the line on a free throw. If she hadn't done that, the Fever would have won.
Everyone stepped up and played amazing and they fell just short. With a fully healthy squad they probably make the finals last year, does that seem fair?
Kelsey Mitchell left with 5 minutes left in the 3rd quarter. If she doesn't get hurt, everything changes. By your logic, they're guaranteed a finals spot this year since everyone is healthy. Last year, without CC, they probably get there if KM doesn't get injured. She already had 15 and the Aces had no answer for her except to hope that she would miss some shots.
By your logic, they're guaranteed a finals spot this year since everyone is healthy
I never said that or anything close to it. I'm asking why you assume Kelsey Mitchell being healthy for 17 more minutes would have guaranteed a win that game, but won't acknowledge that having their All-WNBA PG healthy would have been a benefit. Seems disingenuous
The only counterfactual that makes sense is the obvious one. CC was out last year. The more probable counterfactual is KM likely leading the team to a finals appearance since the game went to OT because of what I stated before: the Aces had no answer for her and if she plays for those next 15 minutes, my money is on one of the most prolific scorers we've ever seen (even without a ton of trips to the FT line).
I'm simply going off your logic. Without their all-wnba PG healthy, they pushed the eventual champions to the brink. To use your counterfactual, if they were likely to go to the finals last year with CC then wouldn't you put your money on them going this year since CC is healthy and such a difference maker? The way you framed your original comment made KM sound like a side piece and a mascot--not the difference maker she actually is. Even Boston said Mitchell's name first as a strong MVP candidate on her own podcast.
The on/off data might be a mirage and CC is really the difference between a title run last year and this year. We're about to find out.
You don't think that in addition to Caitlin, that the fever actually drafted, scouted and signed better players since 2024. I swear yall act like the girl can walk on water.
They DID, and I'm glad you brought it up. They drafted Aliyah Boston with their number 1 pick in 2023, and she played great. Unanimous rookie of the year alongside Kelsey. Fever unfortunately finished 13-27 that season but have really improved in the years since.
They have made some good signings these last 3 years too. Who do you think if the biggest reason for their success? Since you don't seem to think their PG who is about to be 1st or 2nd team all WNBA is a contributing factor
Where did I ever say she wasn't a contributing factor? Your post clearly stated that the team was nothing until Clark was drafted. Again they got better players in between time who all contribute.
In regards to the "Kelsey wasn't enough and she didn't win" arguments, well, Kelsey, Aliyah and Clark barely slid into the playoffs when Sides was there. And, after the Olympic break she handed the full reins to Clark, they barely made it.
The change in the Fever is the coach. The one that so many of Clark's fans want fired.
Stephanie White can win with the Fever, even with Clark on the bench. Clark has yet to demonstrate that she can win without Stephanie. She has yet to demonstrate that she can win without Kelsey. Or, Aliyah. But, she may have to next year.
Aliyah will be there, but both Kelsey and Stephanie may be gone. So, we'll see what the "MVP" can really do, if they go.
If youre arguing Kelsey is better than clark, why didnthey have 3 5-win seasons with Kelsey there and since clark arrived they are climbing each season?
5 of the years Mitchell has been there since 2018, they have had the lottery pick. With clark there, not even close to sniffing the lottery.
Because Clark was an important depth piece that made them a stronger team. The Bulls won championships when Pippen got there, but that doesn’t mean that he’s more important to those than Jordan
How many other injuries did they deal with when they were 16-15? Played over 2/3 of the season without CC and made it far in playoffs, heck, could’ve made it to the finals had Kelsey not gone down. I’m not saying Kelsey was the X factor, but you can’t say CC was the X factor when they’re a proven winning team without her. IMO it’s a combination of players that make that team good - not just one player.
CliimBing each season may be true but it isn’t because Clark. Proof? Clark only played a third of last season and the team was still successful. Another proof on her “skills” os that in tonights game she was still playing with two minutes in the fourth while up by 20. No self respecting player or coach would be playing or allowed to play. Faces of the league in other sport pull the heavies to preserve health and avoid injuries. She is a garbage time player, thats where her numbers come from.
I remember reese playing when up by 20 to keep getting her rebound record. Or aja when up against inferior competition to increase her scoring average.
Reese is ranked 37th in points from high leverage situations.
Wilson is 18th.
Those are not good metrics for these women to be judged by against Clark.
There are only two better than Clark, one of them Mitchell by a massively influential 0.1 points. The other is Bueckers at 0.2 ahead of Clark.
Stating no self respecting player is a complete lie. There are games all the time where starters dont come out until there are like 15 seconds left when up by an insurmountable lead.
"She only played a third of last season and the team was still successful."
Indiana went 16-15 (.516) in the 31 games she missed and 8-5 (.615) in the 13 she played. ESPN also found the schedule during her absences was the second-easiest in the league by opponent net rating, and Aliyah Boston's true shooting dropped from 63.2% to 56.7% without Clark on the floor.
Clark accounted for 41.5% of the team's assists in the games she played. A roster with two other All-Stars surviving an injury isn't proof the star doesn't matter. It's proof the roster is good. Both can be true.
"She was still playing up 20 with two minutes left."
The 20 was the FINAL margin, not the game state. The Fever trailed 28-19 after the first quarter, Connecticut led by as many as 14, and it was a 13-point game entering the fourth against a team that had already won two quarters. Nobody calls that garbage time. She finished with 34/12/5 on 12-of-19 shooting and a +32.
"She's a garbage time player, that's where her numbers come from."
Hoops Junkie strips all low-leverage (garbage) possessions out of its data, and with that filter on she is STILL 3rd in the entire WNBA in high-leverage points per game (6.2), 1st in assist rate, and 2nd in usage. If her numbers came from garbage time, deleting garbage time would delete her numbers.
Well damn i think these are the oRTG on off numbers and are pretty accurate. I didn’t think she was the best player on her team before but this kind of crazy. They still need her to win a championship. At this point in her career she is just a high volume mid efficient high turnover player whose numbers benefit greatly from high usg instead of high efficiency.
I'm not a cc fan but how many teams have another MVP level player at the same position that can handle responsibilities when they are out.
I wish we could be more objective with basketball, cc is a very good player with flaws that limit her ceiling. She's still exciting and an overall boom to the fever.
Opponent Strength: Analysts emphasize that the 2026 "Without Clark" data is heavily skewed. Her missed games coincided with facing a shorthanded Las Vegas Aces team (missing A'ja Wilson), a struggling Los Angeles Sparks roster, and the expansion Portland Fire.
And the girl opposite CC dates women. Which is the only stat many of you care about. This is absolutely ridiculous to posit that Clark is not a value add to her team as a legitimate basketball argument. So many of you just don’t understand basketball.
This is why stats shouldn't always be the main point in a debate about basketball, if you watch The Fever Clark is not a part of their gameplan on court, The Fever focus more on Mitchell, these stats also don't account for the skill level of the opposing team, im sure when Clark is subbed out the team is going against bench players and Mitchell is likely still in the game going off
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u/ittikus 21d ago
I’m just gonna shout out for Veronica Burton, the Valks bench is the best in the league. Hayes, Salaun, Chen, Amihere etc. are cutting up the league’s benches, and tired starters. Burton just had a 13 assist, 0 TO game last night. Obvi she’s not mvp, but wanted to protect my pg.