INDIANAPOLIS — Another notable thing happened to the Indiana Fever on Thursday morning: Nothing notable happened. They walked into an empty arena for practice. They stretched. They shot some layups. They moved to the other end of the floor and shot some more layups as “No Scrubs” echoed throughout Gainbridge Fieldhouse.The most caricatured and weaponized team in the league went about the unexciting business of continuing to be good at basketball.People who casually consume the WNBA might not be aware of this. That the Fever, right now, are playing like one of the best teams in the league. It’s an understandable oversight. On too many days, there have been too many fires to put out, too many absurdities to account for. An impartial, carefree observer would assume it’s hard to breathe when there’s nothing but air pollution wherever the Fever go.Instead, they are remarkably more than fine.What makes the Fever the team to play for?One of the best groups in the Eastern Conference — a top-five club in the league — has actually been performing like a viable championship threat over the last month. By offensive rating, the Fever’s offense could wind up as the best in WNBA history. The defense is now competent, which only amplifies the pressure applied by that offense. Inside the funnel cloud, the Fever have evolved and grown as a unit and put together a competitively compelling basketball season.This is not meant as finger-wagging. Who could be blamed for rubbernecking this scene, really? The commotion is real and impossible to ignore. But the Fever are not watchable in the same way a train wreck is watchable. The emerging point is that they are watchable, while somehow not being a train wreck.“I was just thinking about that when I was warming up out there — it’s fun to see how much fun my teammates have with one another,” Fever guard Caitlin Clark said before a resounding win over the New York Liberty on Tuesday. “Because I feel like a lot of the narratives sometimes are the opposite of that. Obviously, I don’t expect people to understand. If you’re not in our locker room, how would you ever know?”Short of someone commissioning a sweeping psychological study, how the Fever haven’t been driven mad indeed may forever be unknowable.From the persistent early questions about Clark’s back injury to questions about how the team handled injury reports to a hard foul non-call allegedly precipitating death threats to technical fouls to comments on transgender athletes to a different hard foul and claims of “White privilege” to the home crowd booing its own coach just minutes after that coach made an impassioned statement defending her job and her relationship with the players … it’s been something. Every seam should be frayed by now.But they aren’t, and yes, using the old “us against everybody” mind trick explains some of the why.“A year ago and this year, it’s like we’re fighting different demons, fighting different battles,” Fever coach Stephanie White said. “But (it’s) the same character. Adversity reveals your character. This is a really special group, a really united group.”Still, there are more quantifiable reasons worth exploring to explain how the Fever have surged out and ahead of the mudslides. For example: The questions people have about Clark’s health lately are quantifiable as zero.Indiana’s franchise centerpiece played 13 games total in 2025 due to quadriceps, groin and ankle injuries. She’s played in 29 of a possible 33 in 2026. She’s logged at least 33 minutes in the last six games.“I feel like myself,” Clark said this week, and for the Fever, that is a good feeling to have. As of Thursday morning, she was third in the league in scoring (21.7 points per game), tied for first in assists (8.2 per game) and ranked ninth in Player Efficiency Rating (22.2). She is on the floor a lot, and she is playing well a lot. Indiana presumably would trend up when that is the case.