Caitlin Clark Scored 45 Points and Made WNBA History - and Then Said She Didn't Really Care

Caption: Caitlin Clark warms up before the Indiana Fever’s game against the Minnesota Lynx at Target Center in Minneapolis on July 14, 2024. Credit: John McClellan, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

There are athletes who make history when everything is aligned, and there are athletes who score 45 points and deal 10 assists - the first time anyone in the WNBA has done both in a single game - on a bad back, in 29 minutes, on a night when the national conversation about how the league treats them is still going, and Caitlin Clark, who made WNBA history on Friday and then said she doesn’t really care about it, is the second kind.

Clark was on a minutes restriction when the Indiana Fever played Seattle on July 17. The back injury she has dealt with since the start of the 2026 season had Fever coach Stephanie White monitoring her carefully. None of that was apparent on the floor. Clark finished 11-for-18 from the field, 6-for-10 from three, 17-for-19 from the free-throw line, with four steals and two blocked shots in addition to the 45 points and 10 assists. The Fever trailed late. With 39.1 seconds left and the score tied, Clark received the ball, gave a quick sidestep to shake loose, elevated from 26 feet away and hit nothing but twine. Indiana won 110-107. Clark became the first player in league history to reach 40 points and 10 assists in the same game. She also became the fastest player in WNBA history to reach 200 career three-pointers, doing it in 74 games, breaking a mark set by Katie Smith between 1999 and 2001.

After the game, in an on-court interview, Clark was asked about the history. She said she doesn’t really care. She said the way her team played defense was embarrassing. She said she refused to come out of the game late despite the back injury because she knew she was needed.

The context around that performance is specific: weeks of national discourse about the incidents Clark has been involved in, including being struck in the throat by a Phoenix Mercury player in June, the ongoing debate about officiating, the question of what the WNBA owes its most watched player versus what it asks of her. Clark has been the subject of that conversation for the better part of two seasons. On Friday she went out and had the best game of her professional career and announced, on camera, that the record was not what she was thinking about.

When the player who makes history and then says she doesn’t care about it is also the player the league cannot stop talking about, what exactly is the WNBA supposed to do next?

References: Caitlin Clark Has 45 Points, 10 Assists for the WNBA’s First 40-10 Game | Fever’s Caitlin Clark Records WNBA’s First 40-Point, 10-Assist Double-Double