The Blunt Reason Why Aces’ Becky Hammon Brushed Off Postgame Question About Caitlin Clark, Fever

The Aces sent Caitlin Clark and the Fever home in a thrilling elimination Game 3 in Las Vegas on Thursday night, with four-time MVP A’ja Wilson showing up big in the 94–83 victory. Was anybody that surprised that the best player in the league delivered when it mattered most? Or when the defending champ Aces, who have reached the WNBA semifinals or Finals in each of the last seven years, outlasted the six-seed entering just their second postseason run with a healthy Clark?

Fans may have been caught more off-guard by the Aces’ postgame press conference, when coach Becky Hammon fielded a rather specific question about Indiana. Fresh off the Aces’ eighth straight semifinal berth, Hammon was asked whether she saw any parallels between this Fever squad and the Aces team that she took over back in 2022.

“No,” Hammon succinctly replied.

Wilson, who was seated next to Hammon, couldn’t help but let out a laugh before looking at her coach as if to convey, Damn. You really said that? The two then locked eyes, bonding over Hammon’s lightning-quick and savage answer.

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“I really was just trying to to see if you saw like, similar potential in that [Fever] team,” the reporter clarified, chuckling along with the Aces’ duo.

“You didn’t ask me about their potential,” Hammon cut in. “... But [Kelsey] Plum was here, there was a whole bunch of like—I mean, [Aliyah] Boston and Caitlin [Clark].”

Wilson then jumped in to remind the media that Kelsey Mitchell, the third prong of the Fever’s current Big Three, got selected with the No. 2 pick in the 2018 draft, while she was the No. 1 pick.

“Listen ... let’s just move on. I think that team has great potential, to answer your question. But it’s different,” Hammon said, putting an emphatic period to that topic.

Becky Hammon on if she sees parallels between the Aces that she took over in 2022 and this Fever team, both having multiple top picks:

"No."

*A'ja reacts*

"I think that team has great potential but... it's different."pic.twitter.com/BWTnreOeU8
— Underdog WNBA (@UnderdogWNBA) October 2, 2026

Breaking down the comparison between 2026 Fever and 2022 Aces teams

Hammon probably didn’t mean any disrespect by brushing off the reporter’s question so tersely. What she said was true: There aren’t all that many parallels between the two teams.

Let’s start with what they have in common. Both the 2026 Fever squad and the 2022 Aces squad that Hammon inherited boast a bevy of former top picks. Las Vegas had three former No. 1 selections in Kelsey Plum (2017), Wilson (‘18) and Jackie Young (’19); Indiana drafted back-to-back former No. 1 picks in Boston (‘23) and Clark (‘24) and took Mitchell second in ’18, as Wilson so graciously pointed out.

Both respective cores dazzled in the regular season, with Plum-Young-Wilson forming a high-scoring offensive trio that produced at the same level as Clark-Boston-Mitchell. Both trios led the league in points per game (the Aces averaged 90.4 while the Fever averaged 96.0) and three-point percentage (the Aces shot 36.1% while the Fever shot 38.6%).

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That’s around where the similarities end. One team got knocked out in the first round of the playoffs. The other made it all the way to the Finals and won its first-ever WNBA title.

Led by their unstoppable trinity of future Hall-of-Famers and a then-first-year coach in Hammon, the Aces defeated the Mercury and Storm to set up a Finals showdown against the Alyssa Thomas-led Sun. Vegas ended up beating Connecticut three games to one in part thanks to Finals MVP Chelsea Gray, the Aces’ veteran floor general who put together one of the greatest individual playoff runs ever witnessed in WNBA history. Gray averaged 21.7 points, 7.0 assists and 1.2 steals across 10 games while shooting 61.1% from the field and 54.5% from deep. The then-29-year-old scored or assisted on 379 of the Vegas’ 860 points (44%), marking the most by a single player in the league’s postseason history.

Gray could break a game four years ago. Wilson, a soon-to-be-five-time MVP, can do so today. The 2026 Indiana squad managed to steal Game 2 of this year’s series, buoyed by Clark’s monster record-setting performance, but when it came down to it, with the season on the line, the Fever’s talented triad shrank in the spotlight. Clark put up a near-dud in the fourth quarter of the do-or-die game, Mitchell finally ran out of steam after her MVP-caliber season and Boston’s elite defense and rebounding ultimately wasn’t enough to keep Indiana’s title-contending hopes alive.

So, why did Hammon and Wilson share a giggle at the expense of the eliminated Fever? It likely didn’t stem from any malice or disrespect. It was just an out-of-place comparison. One of those cores won three titles in the last half-decade. The other has yet to reach the WNBA Finals, and now faces uncomfortable questions about the future of the franchise with its marquee generational star officially on the clock to deliver a championship.

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