Caitlin Clark’s bond with Aliyah Boston gets spotlight on new ball

One of Caitlin Clark’s new signature basketballs has a nod to Indiana Fever teammate Aliyah Boston.

The Aspire ball in Clark’s new line from Wilson appears to be a white basketball. When it’s put in the sunlight, however, several of Clark’s favorite phrases emerge. One of those is, ‘You’re going to be amazing because you are amazing.’ That’s what Clark tells Boston before every game as they’re sitting on the bench.

‘See! She loves it!’ Clark said when she spotted a photo of her and Boston on the Wilson design team’s planning whiteboard. ‘We’ll get her a free basketball. She’ll love it. Put it in her locker.’

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Boston and Clark were both overall No. 1 picks in the WNBA draft, Boston in 2023 out of South Carolina and Clark in 2024 out of Iowa. Clark said when she was drafted that she was excited for the opportunity to play with Boston, and the two quickly bonded.

‘Not only is she a great basketball player, but she’s a great person, she’s a great leader in our locker room,’ Clark said at last year’s All-Star Game. ‘She’s always had my back. She’s been there for me … when games are great, when games aren’t great. She’s just somebody that I can lean on.’

And the feeling is mutual for Boston.

In a ‘Teammate Trivia’ segment for Sports Illustrated that Clark and Boston did with Kelsey Mitchell and DeWanna Bonner, Boston picked Clark as the teammate she’d call to bail her out of jail.

Clark was personally involved in creating the designs for her latest collection with Wilson, which was unveiled earlier this month and went on sale Monday. She and Wilson wanted to create a line that reflects her both as a player and a person, and that will resonate with Clark’s young fanbase.

In addition to what Clark tells Boston before each game, the phrases ‘Dream Big’ and ‘Keep Going’ can be seen on the Aspire ball in UV light.

‘I didn’t even know you could do the UV thing with the ball,’ Clark told USA TODAY Sports. ‘As a kid … I would’ve thought that was the coolest thing. But my Wilson basketball growing up did not have that. So now that I can have that for younger girls and younger boys, that can inspire them and encourage them, even though maybe I’m not there, or maybe their parents aren’t there, to encourage them.

‘It’s something very simple on the ball,’ she added. ‘I think that’s really cool and unique.’