Sabrina Ionescu Shares Injury Wisdom With Caitlin Clark

Clark has had a frustrating start to the season, missing half of it on her fourth injury––two in her quad, followed by issues in her left groin and now her right. For someone who hasn’t missed a game since high-school, navigating these uncharted waters can take a mental toll.

Liberty star Sabrina Ionescu was in a similar boat in her second year in the WNBA, after missing nearly all of her rookie season with a severe ankle injury.

“I had four soft tissue injuries that next year that a lot of people didn't know about…two calves and two hamstrings and kind of just tried to play through it,” Ionescu said Tuesday after the game to the media. 

“It's kind of similar [to Caitlin]. When you don't go through any injury early on in your career, you have no idea how to maneuver it and that's something I was able to talk to her about at All-Star [weekend] is, you almost sometimes have to go through it to be able to understand, like, what your body needs and you're able to tell what you can play through and what you can't.”

Clark carries a lot on her shoulders with the spotlight she has in the WNBA––much of the bottom line success is directly attributed to her hitting the court. For the brief stint she was out with her second quad injury, Nielsen recorded a 55% decline in nationally televised games, so it’s no surprise that Clark would want to suit back up as soon as she could.

For now, Clark will remain sidelined for an undetermined amount of time. She is seeking opinions from various doctors as she and her support team navigate through next steps.

But every setback is a setup for a comeback––and Ionescu offered Clark some sound advice echoing the sentiment: “I told her, although it sucks now, it's going to be a blessing in disguise, and you just have to stay positive about it, knowing you're gonna become a better player and better person from it.”