Fever’s Sophie Cunningham to miss rest of season, playoffs with right knee injury

The hits keep coming for the Indiana Fever.

Indiana announced Tuesday that seven-year veteran Sophie Cunningham will miss the rest of the 2025 season, including the playoffs, with a right knee injury. Cunningham sustained the injury in the second quarter of the Fever’s 21-point comeback win over the Connecticut Sun on Sunday. While attempting to help on defense as guard Bria Hartley drove to the left side of the basket, Cunningham collided with Hartley and immediately grabbed her right leg in pain.

Cunningham averaged 8.6 points and 3.5 rebounds in her first season in Indiana while shooting a career-best 46.9 percent from the field and 43.2 percent on 3s. She entered the starting lineup for the Fever 13 games ago and had been playing pseudo-point guard after Sydney Colson and Aari McDonald suffered season-ending injuries on Aug. 7.

Indiana signed veteran point guard Odyssey Sims to a hardship contract after losing Colson and McDonald. The Fever responded to Cunningham’s injury by picking up another veteran floor general, Shey Peddy. The 36-year-old previously appeared in six games this season for the Los Angeles Sparks.

With nine games to play in the regular season, Indiana sits in sixth place in the WNBA standings, 2 1/2 games ahead of ninth-place Los Angeles. The Fever are still without Caitlin Clark, who has missed the last 13 games with a groin injury. The team was hopeful that Clark would return to practice this week, as Indiana had four days off between games. The Fever have the most difficult remaining schedule in the WNBA, with three games still to play against the league-leading Minnesota Lynx.

Despite the absences of all of Indiana’s primary ballhandlers, Kelsey Mitchell has had the best season of her eight-year career. Mitchell is averaging a career-high 20.4 points and 3.4 assists, the second-highest mark of her pro tenure. Aliyah Boston is also posting career-highs of 15.2 points and 3.6 assists. The Fever will need even more from both All-Stars to survive this stretch.

(Photo: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)