In the world of professional sports, the offseason is when good players become great, and great players become legends. It is a sacred time for refinement, recovery, and evolution. For Caitlin Clark, the generational talent who single-handedly “changed the game” for the WNBA, this first professional offseason is critical. After a brutal 2025 rookie campaign marked by relentless physicality and a string of injuries, the path to her second season should be paved with the best resources money can buy.
Enter Chris Brickley.
If you don’t know his name, you know his clients. Brickley is the basketball world’s most elite trainer, the man superstars like LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, and Donovan Mitchell have on speed dial. He is not, as some might assume, a “celebrity trainer” working for Instagram clout. He is, as the video source states, “the real deal.” You don’t get to that status unless you have the credibility and, more importantly, the results.
This is the man who publicly stated he wants to train Caitlin Clark. And, in a move that has left analysts and fans completely baffled, the Indiana Fever front office is reportedly doing everything in its power to stop it.
This isn’t a new development. Brickley revealed on a recent podcast that he and Clark have been in communication for years. They were even scheduled to work out last summer, but there was a catch: he would have had to travel to Indianapolis. At the time, Brickley respectfully understood the dynamic. “When you’re young on your team, you listen,” he acknowledged, recognizing that a rookie training at team facilities is standard procedure.
But Clark is no longer just any rookie. She is the face of the league, the economic engine who “is the reason why the WNBA has become so big.” With her rookie year complete, Brickley is now publicly “hoping that she’ll come to New York” so they can “get some work in.”
This should have been a no-brainer. A world-class trainer wants to help your franchise player, who just endured a season where her health was “super questionable,” get better. You say “yes.” You don’t, as the video alleges, “create roadblocks” and make it “incredibly difficult.”
The Fever’s resistance is deeply troubling, especially given the context of Clark’s 2025 season. The league’s welcome-to-the-pros-moment for Clark was a physical gauntlet. She was targeted, beaten up, and defenders swarmed her relentlessly. This led to a cascade of injuries, and many are now pointing fingers directly at the Fever’s staff. The team’s solution to the physicality was to have Clark “add muscle.” However, many experts and insiders now believe “that extra muscle actually caused more injuries throughout the season.”
The very training and medical staff that the Fever is now forcing Clark to stay with is the same one whose approach “just isn’t working” and may have contributed to her physical breakdown.
This is what makes the potential of a Brickley partnership so vital. His training isn’t just about lifting weights. He could provide Clark with a “system to handle all that physicality” without simply wrecking her body. He could teach her the elite NBA-level skills she desperately needs: how to “escape those tough traps,” how to refine her “shooting off the dribble,” and how to finish through contact “without always relying on the ref’s whistle.” These are the specialized, nuanced skills that separate superstars from MVP-caliber champions, and they require a specialized trainer who has seen and defended it all.
So why is the Fever blocking her?
The video speculates on a few disturbing possibilities. Is the front office “worried it’ll make their own staff look bad?” Are they “scared about losing control over their franchise player?”
Whatever the root cause, it is “backwards thinking.” The Fever seems “way more worried about controlling where and how Caitlyn trains” than they are about her “actually helping her get better.” They want her at their practice facility, working with their staff, under their watch.
This is not how modern superstar athletes operate. “NBA guys have specialized coaches outside of team facilities no one bats an eye,” the source points out. But for Clark, the Fever is acting like “overprotective parents,” micromanaging a professional athlete who has earned the right to independence. This “weird and controlling” stance is not just frustrating; it’s a “dangerous mindset” for a team to have.
The organization seems to be stuck in a bureaucratic loop of “pride” and “stubbornness,” forgetting the ultimate goal. A healthier, more skilled, and more durable Caitlin Clark means “more wins, more fans, more money. It’s that simple.” By creating “unnecessary obstacles,” they are failing to support the very player who is their franchise’s—and their league’s—single greatest asset.
Think about the message this sends to Clark herself. One of the most respected trainers on the planet, a man who has seen “something special” in her, publicly reaches out to help. And her own team, the one that should be “rolling out the red carpet,” makes it difficult. She is, by all accounts, too professional to complain publicly, but she must know what kind of “opportunity she’s missing because the fever can’t get out of its own way.”
This is a critical moment for the Indiana Fever. They are fumbling an opportunity to invest in their star player’s long-term health and transcendent potential. They are choosing control over empowerment, ego over evolution. The Fever needs to “get out of its own way” and let Caitlin Clark work with whomever she believes will make her the best player in the world. If that’s Chris Brickley in New York, the only correct answer is “when does she leave?” Anything else is a failure of leadership and a disservice to the player who has given them everything.