The record for most assists in a WNBA game belongs to Caitlin Clark, and the number is 19. That is the clean answer to the search, but it is not the interesting part. The interesting part is who she had to pass to get there.
Before Clark, the mark sat with Courtney Vandersloot at 18. That is not a name that showed up on a leaderboard by accident. Vandersloot has spent a career being the most efficient decision maker on the floor, and in 2020 she became the first player in league history to average double figures in assists for a season. Ten a night. As a baseline. When a player like that owns your ceiling, the ceiling tends to stay put.
Then a rookie put up 19 in a single game and moved it.
What I like about this record is how differently the two of them arrive at it. Vandersloot's assists come from geometry: the pocket pass, the early drag screen read, the ball leaving her hands a half beat before the help commits. Clark's come from range and gravity, from defenders who have to respect a pull-up from the logo and end up two steps out of position on the skip pass. Same box score line. Completely different crimes.
From the almanac: for a long stretch of this league's early years the assist leaderboard was basically Ticha Penicheiro's personal diary, and Sue Bird eventually finished as the career leader. Passing has always been the position the WNBA treats as an art form rather than a stat, which is exactly why a single-game record here carries weight that a scoring outburst does not.
What comes next for the people in it: Clark and the Fever are in Toronto on Tuesday night, a road date against a franchise that did not exist when this record was set. That is the part I keep chewing on. The league grew around these numbers fast enough that the context changes every summer.
I'm watching whether anyone touches 19 before the season closes. My guess is no. Records built on that much floor gravity do not fall often.
