Caitlin Clark Missed 28 Games Last Year. Paige Bueckers Built Her Throne Anyway. Saturday They Meet.

Caitlin Clark played 13 games last season. Thirteen.

She tore her right groin on July 15. Came back. Aggravated it. Came back. Bone bruise in her left ankle in August. Quad. Other groin. By September 4, the Fever ruled her out for the rest of the year. She missed the last 19 games of the regular season and the playoffs.

Thirteen games. After never missing one in four years at Iowa. After never missing one as a WNBA rookie. Just gone.

And while she was sitting in street clothes watching it happen, Paige Bueckers won the league.

Not literally — Las Vegas won the title. But Bueckers won the year. She was the story Clark was supposed to be. The rookie phenom. The face. The one everyone tuned in to see. She got 70 of 72 first-place votes for Rookie of the Year. She averaged 19.2 points, 5.4 assists, 3.9 rebounds and shot 47.4 percent from the field. She became the first rookie in WNBA history to put up 15-plus points and 5-plus assists on 45-plus percent shooting.

Then on August 20, she went into Crypto.com Arena and dropped 44 points on 17-of-22 shooting. The previous rookie record was 40, set by Candace Parker in 2008. Bueckers didn't just break it — she shot 81 percent doing it. First player in WNBA history to score 40 and shoot 80. The Wings still lost by one because Kelsey Plum hit a buzzer-beater, but everyone in that building knew what they had just seen.

I went back and watched the highlights again this week. There's a moment in the third quarter where she catches the ball at the top of the key, jab-steps once, and just rises. The defender doesn't even contest. The ball is already through the net before her feet hit the ground. She did that 17 times.

Now look at the comparison nobody on First Take wants to put up on screen. In 2025, head-to-head, Bueckers beat Clark in eight statistical categories: points (18.3 to 16.5), steals, blocks, turnovers, field-goal percentage (45.2 to 36.7), 3-point percentage (34.6 to 27.9), free-throw percentage, and true shooting (54.4 to 49.1). Clark led in assists and rebounds. That's it. That's the whole list.

I love Caitlin Clark. The whole point of this site exists partly because of what she's done for women's basketball. But you can't pretend the numbers say something they don't.

The numbers say Paige Bueckers was the better player last year.

Saturday, May 9, 2026. Gainbridge Fieldhouse. 1 p.m. ET. Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever host Paige Bueckers and the Dallas Wings to open the WNBA's 30th season.

This was always going to be the game. The two consecutive #1 overall picks. UConn vs Iowa, all over again. Two years of college rivalry compressed into a regular season opener that the league openly designed as the marquee. ESPN and ABC didn't put this in the 1 p.m. Saturday window by accident.

Last Thursday, in their preseason meeting, the Wings won 95-80. Clark dropped 21 points in three quarters — 4-of-6 from the field, 2-of-3 from three, 11-of-13 from the line. She looked sharp. Like a player who had spent eight months in the gym thinking about what she missed. Then in the third quarter, she went up for a stepback over Alanna Smith, landed on Smith's foot, and went down. Got up limping. Made the free throws after the flagrant, then exited.

She told reporters after the game she landed on her kneecap. "I feel good," she said. The Fever's official injury report Sunday for the Nigeria preseason finale didn't list her. Good news.

But here's the thing nobody wants to say out loud: last year started this way too. Clark looked great in preseason. Looked great in May. Looked great in June. Then July 15 happened. Then August. Then September. The injury timeline is unfixable now — every awkward landing, every foul that goes a little too hard, every time she limps off, the whole sport holds its breath. The Fever's season depends on her body holding up. Her body did not hold up last year.

Bueckers, meanwhile, had 20 points in the first half on Thursday. Eight-of-12 from the field, 4-of-6 from three. Then she sat the rest of the game because Dallas was up by 25 and there was no reason to risk her. She has a new running mate now too — Azzi Fudd, the #1 pick in the 2026 draft, her UConn teammate, reuniting in the pros. Fudd shot 2-for-7 in her debut. Quiet line. But Dallas didn't need her to do anything. They have Bueckers.

Indiana has Clark. They also have Lexie Hull back from injury, Kelsey Mitchell, the same core Stephanie White is trying to keep healthy long enough to find out what they actually have. The Wings have Bueckers, Fudd, Arike Ogunbowale, and a roster that nearly snuck into the playoffs last year before falling apart at the end.

So Saturday is more than a season opener. It's the answer to a question that's been hanging in the air since July: was the WNBA waiting on Caitlin Clark to come back, or had it already moved on without her?

I think the answer is both. The league grew without Clark last year — TV ratings, attendance, expansion, two new franchises in Toronto and Portland, a CBA deal, a real Unrivaled offseason league with $600,000 prize pools. None of that needed Clark to keep going. Bueckers proved that a 6-foot guard from UConn with a clean jumper and clean handle could carry the league for a summer.

But the moments — the moments — those still belong to Clark. The threes from the logo. The Iowa fans who travel to every road arena. The way Gainbridge will sound on Saturday at 1 p.m. when she walks out for tip.

Bueckers built the throne while Clark was hurt.

Saturday, Clark gets to walk back into her own arena and ask for it back.