Kelsey Mitchell's Honest Reaction to Caitlin Clark's WNBA MVP Message Speaks Volumes
While the Indiana Fever have struggled to maintain their spot in the WNBA standings ever since star guard Caitlin Clark suffered a groin injury on July 15, these struggles are not owed to Kelsey Mitchell.
The three-time WNBA All-Star has put the Fever on her back for much of the past month or so, and is currently on pace to score 20.6 points per game this season, which would be a career high for her. It's also the third-most points per game out of anybody in the WNBA, and the most for a guard.
Mitchell isn't the most outspoken person, as she has a pretty shy personality and typically lets her game speak for itself. Therefore, she sometimes needs others to speak on her behalf. And that's what Caitlin Clark (and other members of Indiana's staff) decided to do in a cool way during the Fever's August 22 game against the Minnesota Lynx.
During Friday's game, Clark was rocking a t-shirt that showed several photos of Mitchell on it, which had, "MVP Mitchell" written on it. Therefore, Clark was endorsing Mitchell for the 2025 WNBA MVP award, which she certainly deserved to be in the conversation for.
Caitlin Clark rockin' a Kelsey Mitchell for MVP shirt. 🔥😂#IONWNBA | @IndianaFever pic.twitter.com/UBJx8nITgr
— WNBA on ION (@IONWNBA) August 22, 2025
Mitchell was interviewed on the ION broadcast before Friday's game began. And at one point, she was asked, "We see Caitlin Clark on the sidelines, rocking the Kelsey Mitchell MVP shirt. How would you define, in your words, the season you're having?"
"I can't really explain it, from a words standpoint," Mitchell responded, per an X post from WNBA on ION. "I'll be honest with you, Autumn. I've always loved basketball enough to keep working at it, be my best at it. So I like to think that's what you guys see now. But I've always wanted to prepare, I've always been in the gym, just kind of working on my game. So what you guys see is just me trying to be me."
"I always loved basketball enough to keep working at it and be my best at it so I'd like to think that's what you guys see now."
— WNBA on ION (@IONWNBA) August 22, 2025
Kelsey Mitchell reacts to Caitlin Clark's shirt hyping her up for MVP. 🤝#IONWNBA | @IndianaFever pic.twitter.com/Ab40QMKO8V
While Mitchell didn't respond to the part of the question about Clark wearing her shirt, she did comment about the shirts directly after Friday's game ended.
"It was fun, it was funny. I was very humbled, I was grateful for my group. I love the people I play with, and to know that they'd go out of their way to make something like that happen for me, it means a lot. More than people know," Mitchell said of the MVP shirts, per an X post from Brian Haenchen.
"I feel like [my Fever teammates] make me feel like I'm important to them, and vice versa. So that value means everything to me... I'm forever gonna look at them like forever friends after something like that."
Kelsey Mitchell on the MVP t-shirts her coaches and teammates wore tonight. pic.twitter.com/8gUtXvmt1y
— hank 🇰🇷 (@Brian_Haenchen) August 23, 2025
It's cool to hear Mitchell talk about how much this gesture meant to her, and speaks volumes about the relationship that the Fever players have with each other in the locker room.
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Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the Indiana Fever 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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