Unrivaled President Addresses Potential Caitlin Clark Participation
Every women's basketball fan knows by now that Indiana Fever superstar guard Caitlin Clark won't be playing for the rest of this 2025 WNBA season, which she revealed in a social media post last week.
This is because Clark and the Fever ran out of time in getting her back to the court after she suffered a groin injury on July 15 and an ankle injury on August 7 (which occurred while she was rehabbing the groin issue). Since Indiana only has one regular season game left, the organization didn't want to rush Clark back to the court until she was fully healthy, which proved to be too tall a task.
Therefore, fans won't get to see Clark playing for the Fever until next May (or perhaps late April, depending on how the schedule shakes out).
Although that doesn't necessarily mean that women's basketball fans have to wait that long before Clark is competing against her WNBA peers. There's a chance that she could compete in the Unrivaled 3x3 women's basketball league, which made waves in its inaugural 2025 season and is poised for another successful campaign starting in January 2026.
Unrivaled President Speaks About Caitlin Clark Dialogue
Unrivaled made a concerted effort to get Clark to play during the 2025 season. And while it looked likely that she would for a time, Clark ultimately declined their offer, instead electing to stay in Indianapolis, remain in the weight room, and work on specific skills before her second WNBA season.
On September 8, news broke that Unrivaled has raised another round of funding from investors, to the point where the league now has a $340 million valuation. Unrivaled president Alex Bazzell spoke with Ben Pickman of The Athletic about this, and Clark's potential participation came up at one point in the ensuing article.
“There’s no current dialogue taking place right now,” Bazzell said about discussions with Clark. He then added, “Everyone knows that we want the best players. Everyone knows that if they’re interested, we always have spots," per an X post from Pickman.
“There’s no current dialogue taking place right now,” Unrivaled's Alex Bazzell told @TheAthleticWBB about discussions with Caitlin Clark.
— Ben Pickman (@benpickman) September 8, 2025
But he added, “Everyone knows that we want the best players. Everyone knows that if they’re interested, we always have spots.”
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The fact that there's "no dialogue" between the two sides doesn't mean much at the moment, as WNBA players are currently focused on their WNBA seasons.
What's for sure is that Clark deciding to spurn Unrivaled and instead work out individually (without competing) last offseason didn't work, given her injury-plagued 2025 campaign.
Many are hoping that this will convince Clark that the best course of action would be to play in Unrivaled this offseason. And time will tell whether Clark thinks the same.
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Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.
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