It has been three straight losses for the Indiana Fever, including two since Caitlin Clark went down with a quad injury last week. Now 2-4 on the season, Indy has hit a rough patch, and it's unclear when exactly the waters will smooth over.
In addition to Clark's absence, the Fever recently lost Sophie Cunningham and Sydney Colson in Friday's loss to Connecticut. That leaves Indiana without its guiding light and two key rotation pieces, not to mention the four players waived last month. In a league already known to roster too few players, the Fever are experiencing a full-on roster crunch.
That has led the front office to take drastic, creative measures, invoking a little-known 'emergency hardship exception' to add depth to a paper-thin second unit.
The Fever signed Aari McDonald on Monday. McDonald was with the Los Angeles Sparks last season, averaging 8.7 points and 3.7 assists on .403/.319/.849 splits in 21.8 minutes per game. She was the third overall pick to Atlanta in the 2021 WNBA Draft.
With the guard rotation in shambles, McDonald should quickly pick up minutes.
Fever add Aari McDonald to shore up guard rotation with Caitlin Clark, Sophie Cunningham injured
This is a smart upside swing for the Fever, who need to make up this talent deficit somehow. It's fair to say McDonald has never lived up to her potential in the WNBA, but she's a former top-3 pick only a few years removed from a dominant run at Arizona, where she scored over 2,300 points across four college seasons.
Clark is the WNBA's closest equivalent to a Point God ā a generationally talented playmaker who can bend and break defenses with an uncommon blend of shooting gravity, ball-handling craft and playmaking vision. There is no one-for-one replacement, but McDonald can at least help set the table for the offense and bury a couple 3s every night. As a bench guard with a low bar to clear, this feels like a home run.
What is the emergency hardship exception?
The concept behind this exception is clear. A WNBA team is allowed to sign any player, effective immediately, when their roster dips below 10 healthy players. That is the state of affairs in Indiana, and there's no point to playing these games more shorthanded than necessary.
This feels like a symptom of a larger issue, which is that the WNBA only allows 12 players on a standard roster. The NBA allows 15, plus three two-way slots. There has been so much talk of WNBA expansion, but so many calls from within the league vouch for an expansion of the current rosters, which would help teams avoid this sort of injury-related catastrophe.
Indiana is in a uniquely tough bind, but injuries are part of the game. The WNBA is also a rapidly growing enterprise. It's past time to just let more players on these teams.