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Caitlin Clark Claimed She’s the Best Transition Player in the WNBA. Is She, Really?

Kristen Wong|
Indiana Fever superstar guard Caitlin Clark is entering her third WNBA season in 2026.
Indiana Fever superstar guard Caitlin Clark is entering her third WNBA season in 2026. | Grace Smith/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Indiana Fever

The 2026 WNBA season is nearly here, and that means we hopefully get to see a full season of Caitlin Clark hooping with the Indiana Fever.

Last year, Clark was limited to just 13 games due to groin and quad injuries. Fans got to see her back in action during the FIBA World Cup Qualifying tournament in March, but Clark and Team USA rolled over all five of their international opponents with ease. Come the new WNBA season, Clark will likely face a tougher time playing against some of the league’s top superstars (and superteams: the New York Liberty) in A’ja Wilson, Sabrina Ionescu and others.

During Clark’s media availability at Fever training camp this week, she made a somewhat bold statement to the press:

“I think I'm the best transition player in the league. That's where I thrive,” Clark said with a confident smile.

Is that true? Let’s break down how good Clark has been specifically in transition over her last two WNBA campaigns.

Due to the small sample size in 2025, it’s difficult to say whether Clark improved as a transition player. But going back to her historic rookie season in ‘24, Clark arguably already proved herself to be one of the best passers in the league—and that applied to playing in transition as well.

Here’s a compilation of some of Clark’s most impressive passes (as a rookie, no less!) to get her teammates in great shooting spots:

For a brief rundown of Clark’s unprecedented rookie year, she set the WNBA single-game assist record (19), and single-season rookie assists record (337). She was the first rookie to ever record a triple-double in WNBA history (against the Liberty in July 2024) and later also became the first rookie to do it again, logging two triple-doubles in Year 1. In the 2024 WNBA All-Star game, Clark recorded 10 dimes, setting a new record for most assists by a rookie in the annual competition.

And those are just the records related to her passing abilities.

Most would agree that Clark’s elite court vision and playmaking ability to set up her teammates for prime shooting opportunities make her one of the most, if not the most, valuable assets in the W. Within the span of just over a season, she’s developed sizzling on-court chemistry with three-time All-Star Aliyah Boston, who’s more often than not on the receiving end of Clark’s backcourt passes, and that relationship should only get stronger entering 2026.

To dig a little deeper into Clark’s play in transition in particular, her fast break scoring stats aren’t actually that impressive because Clark makes a lot of her points from threes and usually is dishing out the ball to her teammates on the fast break rather than shooting herself. Per the WNBA’s fast break scoring metric, which measures which percentage of a player’s points are from fast breaks, Clark ranked 75th among players with 25+ games played in 2024 (11.4% of her points were on the fast break).

There is additionally a darker side to Clark’s greatness, which has to do with her streak of turnovers: During her historic rookie campaign, she also set a record for the most single-season turnovers with 223 (an average of 5.6 per game). That trend unfortunately followed her into her sophomore season, as she logged 66 turnovers across 13 games for an average of 5.1 per game.

Who else in the WNBA is good in transition?

Naturally, Clark has competition. In 2025, with Clark sitting on the bench for the majority of the season, Mercury star Alyssa Thomas led the league in assists with a new single-season record of 357 (a whopping 9.2 per game).

To revisit the WNBA’s fast break stat, Thomas ranked much higher in the league than Clark in 2024: 12th among players with 21.78% of her points coming off fast breaks. In 2025, she ranked 20th with 20.5% of her points coming off of fast breaks. This makes a lot of sense given Thomas’s aggressive playing style and tendency to attack inside the paint to score tough layups.

Behind Thomas, Lynx’s Courtney Williams logged a league-second-best 271 assists, and 22.2% of her points came off of fast breaks. Storm’s Gabby Williams was also an excellent scorer in transition, generating 23.7% of her points from fast breaks. So, too, were Liberty stars Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu, as well as Dream’s Allisha Gray.

But Thomas seems to stand out as Clark’s toughest rival as a similarly dominant ball-handler who’s great at finding her teammates in transition or taking it down the court herself. The 34-year-old Thomas is just as if not more capable of playing with pace, seeing the floor and ruthlessly bulldozing her way through timid defenses.

Here are a few highlights of Thomas’s transition passing over the years:

And here is Thomas driving to the rim following a defensive stop—this is certainly one area where she outmuscles Clark, and it explains why Thomas has historically scored more points off of fast breaks than the Fever star:

With Clark and Thomas both healthy this year, it’ll be interesting to see which player comes out on top in assists and transition play. Thomas is coming off a WNBA Finals run and one of the best seasons of her 12-year career, but Clark has benefitted from extra rest and will have plenty to prove as the Fever look to make the playoffs for the third straight time.

May the best transition player win.

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Kristen Wong
KRISTEN WONG

Kristen Wong is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. She has been a sports journalist since 2020 and has a bachelor’s in English and linguistics from Columbia University. Before joining SI in November 2023, Wong covered four NFL teams as an associate editor with the FanSided NFL network and worked as a staff writer for the brand’s flagship site. She is a lifelong Liverpool fan who enjoys solving crossword puzzles and hanging out at her neighborhood dive bar in NYC.

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