Indiana and Dallas opened their seasons at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on opening weekend with a matchup built around Paige Bueckers and Caitlin Clark, a pairing that turned the first night of the WNBA calendar into must-see television. Azzi Fudd, the No. 1 pick in the 2026 draft, also made her WNBA debut in the game.
The Wings had Alanna Smith available after upgrading her from probable on the injury report, and she played in a face mask after a nasal fracture in Sunday’s preseason game against the Aces. Smith signed a multiyear deal with Dallas this year after spending two seasons with the Lynx, giving the Wings another veteran piece as they tried to start fast on the road in Indianapolis.
For Indiana, the spotlight was no surprise. Stephanie White said she does not feel pressure from the attention her team receives, and called the league’s mainstream growth a dream come true. She said it was a long way from the days in 2012, when Indiana won the WNBA title and sold-out arenas were mostly reserved for championship or Finals games, to the crowd and attention the league now draws.
White’s framing fit a night that also carried the weight of Clark’s return to a new season. Clark entered the WNBA as the No. 1 overall pick in 2024 after becoming the all-time leading scorer in Division I college basketball, but her 2025 season was marred by injury and she remains a longshot to win WNBA MVP. Even so, the scale of interest around her and Bueckers turned this into one of those league nights that travels well beyond one arena.
That is the friction inside the league’s new reach. Clark and Bueckers can fill the frame, but Indiana’s recent history is larger than one player: the franchise won the 2012 championship, returned to the WNBA finals in 2015 and reached the semifinals last season without Clark. Brian Hamilton described Clark as healthy, likely irritated by how last season played out, and backed by a team that should be good, while noting that no player has won WNBA MVP three times in a row.
The bigger point is that the league now has more than one spotlight to sell, and this opener put several of them in the same building at once. With Fudd debuting, Clark healthy and Smith back in the lineup, the Wings vs Fever matchup landed as both a season opener and an early measuring stick for how far the WNBA’s audience has come — and how much of it still runs through the same few names.
