On Tuesday night, the Indiana Fever shocked the WNBA world by defeating the Minnesota Lynx in the Commissioner's Cup final despite the absence of star guard Caitlin Clark.
With Clark out, the defense stepped up, holding one of the league's best offenses to just 59 points. Natasha Howard's 16-point, 12-rebound effort earned her the MVP award.
It was a great win for the Fever, but recent history suggests that it doesn't really say much about the team's chance of winning the actual WNBA championship.
The Fever won the Cup, but that doesn't mean they'll win the title
This is the fifth Commissioner's Cup. So far, just one of the four champions has gone on to win the WNBA title. That winner was the Las Vegas Aces in 2022.
The past two champions have made the Finals, but haven't won. The 2023 Liberty lost to the Aces in the WNBA Finals, and last year the Lynx lost to the Liberty.
The first winner of the Cup, the 2021 Seattle Storm, lost in the second round of the playoffs.
All this is to say that winning the Cup isn't some guarantee that the Fever are going to go on to win the Finals. It's not time to start cashing those preseason Fever title bets just yet.
In many ways, this Fever Cup title feels like an anomaly in a way that the previous winners didn't. Indiana is just 8-8 on the season and currently sits in the No. 8 seed. The team was without its best player. It's a great story, and it's great for the league to see its most popular team win something like this, but don't think of it as some harbinger of future success — not in 2025, at least.
That's not to say Fever fans shouldn't celebrate this victory. Sports don't have to be all about winning a championship. They can be about the journey, and about the moments of joy, and Tuesday night was a moment of joy in Indiana, a night that the Fever took down the best team in the league with all the lights shining on them. It's a huge win for Indiana and one that could jump-start a run for the team. It's just not necessarily a sign this team is a title contender yet, which is okay! It is!
Minnesota is still the title favorite. Phoenix, New York and Atlanta all still feel more likely to be the other team in the Finals at this current moment, but things can change. Indiana could make a run still, especially if Clark can return healthy soon.
But even if that doesn't happen, the team has this great memory to fall back on. The Commissioner's Cup was widely expected before the season to be a chance to see the Lynx and Liberty in a Finals preview. That Indiana prevented that not only by getting there but also by winning once there is a huge accomplishment.