Caitlin Clark Has 'Different Aura' Entering 2nd WNBA Season, Fever's Lexie Hull Says

Indiana Fever guard Lexie Hull has noticed some subtle changes in teammate Caitlin Clark as the All-WNBA guard approaches her second season.

"[This year] there is this different aura about it, that she's here and she's ready to take care of business," Hull said to ESPN's Alexa Philippou.

She theorized that Clark also benefited from having a full offseason to rest and reset, turning down interest from Unrivaled.

"You watch people playing in a league that you're not playing in, and you've been itching to play for months on end, there's like, 'Oh, that looks so fun,'" Hull said. "For her this year, it was really important to just sit back and watch. ... I think it was the best thing for her."

Clark was sluggish out of the gate as a rookie, which was partially attributed to a difficult schedule and only having a little more than a month between her final college game and her WNBA debut.

The midseason pause for the 2024 Summer Olympics allowed Clark to get some much needed downtime, and it's no coincidence her performance improved in the second half. Across Indiana's final 14 games, she averaged 23.1 points on 43.5 percent shooting along with 5.4 rebounds and 8.9 assists per contest.

The expectations for Clark and her team couldn't be much higher in 2025. She's among the top contenders for MVP, while adding DeWanna Bonner, Natasha Howard and Sophie Cunningham in the offseason was a sign of the Fever's ambition.

That might be putting too much on Clark's shoulders. Breanna Stewart was in her third season with the Seattle Storm when she won her first WNBA title and MVP. A'ja Wilson was likewise in Year 3 when she bested Stewie in the 2020 MVP voting and helped to get the Las Vegas Aces in the WNBA Finals.

Still, Clark largely lived up to the hype as a rookie, so the excitement around what she can do as a follow-up is warranted.