Fever All-Star Caitlin Clark breaks WNBA rookie assist record in win over Storm

Caitlin Clark continues to assert herself as one of the best passers in WNBA history.

Already the record-holder for assists in a single game (19, which she set in the final game before the All-Star break), Clark is now in the record books once more. With her third assist Sunday against the Seattle Storm, Clark set a new single-season mark for total helpers by a rookie.

Clark passed Ticha Penicheiro, who had 225 for the Sacramento Monarchs in 1998.

The WNBA season was shorter during Penicheiro’s rookie year, but it took the Portuguese guard 30 games to reach 225. Clark exceeded that mark in Indiana’s 28th game of the season, with 12 more contests left to put that total out of reach for future first-years.

Records are meant to be broken…it shows growth and evolution. Can’t think of a better player to break it!! Congrats @CaitlinClark22 https://t.co/l99HRKJR7u

— Ticha Penicheiro (@TichaPenicheiro) August 18, 2024

After a relatively slow start to the season — at least by the prolific standard she set at Iowa — Clark has been on a tear of late. In the last 16 games entering Sunday (after that brutal opening stretch of 11 contests in 20 days), Clark is averaging a near double-double with 18.9 points and 9.6 assists per game.

She kicked off the second half of the season with 29 points and 10 assists in a win over the Phoenix Mercury and their three Olympians. Clark followed that with 23 points, nine assists and five rebounds on 9-of-19 shooting in the Indiana Fever’s 92-75 win over the Storm.

Clark is the WNBA leader in assists per game (8.3) and could break the single-season total assist record held by Connecticut Sun forward Alyssa Thomas if she averages 7.1 assists the rest of the way. New York Liberty guard Courtney Vandersloot’s all-time mark of 10 assists per game (set during the 22-game bubble season in 2020) still looms, but it would be foolish to bet against Clark chasing that at some point in her nascent career.

The Fever sit at 13-15, in seventh place in the WNBA standings with the top eight making the playoffs. They have already tied their win total from a year ago, and have beaten the two teams directly in front of them in the standings to start the second half of the season. Indiana has the second-easiest schedule remaining over its final 12 games.