The Indiana Fever closed out the last two months of the 2022 WNBA season with a crushing stretch of what felt like inevitable losses — 18 in a row — that the team just had to endure while looking ahead to the 2023 draft and what turned out to be the No. 1 pick.
This year, the Fever again find themselves in last place, but not in the same kind of playing-out-the-string spiral. Indiana is still working hard to win games — the Fever got victory No. 8 on Thursday and pushed the New York Liberty to the final minute Sunday — while knowing another No. 1 pick might be on the horizon.
Without a lot of movement in this week’s ESPN WNBA Power Rankings, let’s focus on the bad news and good news for the Fever.
Indiana is 4½ games out of a playoff spot with nine games left, so it’s almost sure to miss the postseason for the seventh consecutive year. But on the bright side, No. 1 draft pick Aliyah Boston is closing in on the Rookie of the Year award, something only one other Fever player (Tamika Catchings in 2002) has won.
Boston is the fifth…
