Breaking down the Aliyah Boston-Caitlin Clark pairing
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In 2023, the Indiana Fever landed the first pick in the WNBA Draft, using that pick to grab South Carolina center Aliyah Boston. A year later, they selected Iowa guard Caitlin Clark with the first overall pick. In theory, a pairing of two of the best young players should set the Fever up for years of success.
But basketball isn’t played in theory, and the pairing has already had its ups and downs. That’s sparked a lot of discussion among basketball fans about how the two can work together. Much of that discussion has come without a lot of nuance — calls from fans of one player to trade the other, insults hurled at a player’s conditioning – offering no room for the reality of professional basketball, which is that it takes time to build something.
One thing that’s been true so far is that Indiana hasn’t been a very good team when Clark and Boston share the floor. The team has a net rating of -19.07 in the 182 minutes they’ve played together per PBP Stats, while the net rating in the 75 minutes that Clark’s played without Boston is +1.31.
That’s a pretty massive difference. Of course, it’s still very early in the season, so the sample size is small. Still, it does match what the eye test is showing us — Indiana has struggled to figure out how to play Boston and Clark together.
One issue has been that the two play different styles of basketball. Per Synergy, roughly one-quarter of Clark’s possessions have come in transition, which ranks in the 69th percentile. Boston, meanwhile, has just six possessions logged as transition, with 95.8% of her possessions coming in the half court. She’s had so few transition possessions that Synergy doesn’t even have a percentile rank listed for her. Essentially, Clark’s a player who is most comfortable when she can get out and run, while Boston is more of a slow-it-down, post-up player.
Boston’s been really good in the past at playing that kind of basketball. Last season, she ranked in the 71st percentile in points per possession on post ups, 70th on put backs and 78th as the roller in the pick-and-roll. Essentially, as a rookie she was in the top 30% at scoring efficiency on three play types that you want a big to be good at.
This season, she’s struggled to finish plays. Boston is scoring 0.825 points per possession overall, which ranks in the 44th percentile. Last season, she was at 1.065 points per possession, which was in the 92nd percentile. Her post-up points per possession rank in the 17th percentile and pick-and-roll roller in the 10th percentile. Something’s been off when she gets the ball, and that’s definitely been part of Indiana’s struggles.
Meanwhile, Clark just isn’t scoring like she did in college. Her 0.825 points per possession rank in the 44th percentile, and Clark is shooting just 32.0% from deep so far. For a player who runs the ball so much, her transition scoring has been a major issue, with Clark ranking in the 15th percentile in points per possession in transition.
But look, I don’t think we need to be playing the blame game right now. Instead, I want to focus on some things that have been happening on the court, both good and bad.
This is where the eye test comes in. I watched a lot of possessions with Boston and Clark sharing the floor, and specifically I watched all of the possessions in the Storm/Fever game from Thursday night over again. A few observations:
A big part of the issue is that Clark’s firing away on the same kind of transition threes she made her living on in college, but they just aren’t going in. Synergy confirms this, with Clark shooting 33.3% on threes in transition this season. Being able to stop on a dime and fire away from deep when on the run can really change the dynamics of an offense, but you need to be able to hit those shots reliably. This has hurt the Fever offense so far, though I wouldn’t call it the bigger problem.
Boston is getting met at the rim a lot of the time, with taller players able to get in there and alter her shots. It’s an issue, but Boston was third in the league last year in field goals made per game in the restricted area. She’s going to figure things out.
Once Boston gets back to finishing stronger at the hoop, Caitlin Clark is going to lead the league in Kobe assists. If you haven’t heard that term, it was coined on Grantland by Kirk Goldsberry, and he described it as, essentially, “missed shots that are more like accidental passes that lead to put-backs.” Boston is a really good offensive rebounder, ranking third in the WNBA last season in offensive boards per game. She’s perhaps the perfect player to be there on the receiving end of these missed Clark threes. It sets up a situation where either Clark’s adding three to the scoreboard or Boston’s going to be in a great spot to grab the offensive board.
Ball movement matters. This is anecdotal, but it sure looks like a key path for the Fever to score buckets is to make multiple passes. Let Clark and another ball handler play off each other in the backcourt and then use Boston as a screener. Eventually, you get the matchup you want, which often seems to be a Clark-Boston pick-and-roll, a play that really should boost the Fever’s ceiling because you have Clark, a dangerous shooter who also has the ability to finish at the basket, and Boston, who has the ability to be an upper echelon finisher in the WNBA, even if she hasn’t gotten there yet in 2024.
The Boston-Clark pairing clearly has the potential to work. There are things that need to be smoothed over, specifically the fact that both players are better at scoring the ball than they’ve shown so far this season. And the Fever would be smart to slow things down more often, emphasizing the pick-and-roll in the half court game, because that might be the best opportunity to take advantage of the respective strengths of the two players.
They’ll get there. Nothing I’ve seen this year suggests that the Fever need to split the two up. It could potentially require a coaching shake up, as many have suggested, though it might be too early to lay the blame on head coach Christie Sides as well, as she’s also still adjusting to how to play the two together. One thing’s certain, though: the combination of a potentially elite scoring guard with elite passing skills with a big like Boston can 100% be a winning combination. Indiana has to figure out how to surround those players — adding another shooter in free agency could open up space for Boston, which theoretically helps her efficiency inside — but the core is there, even if the early returns have been bad.
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