LAS VEGAS — As the Indiana Fever wrapped up shootaround on Tuesday morning, Caitlin Clark walked around, boxed WNBA basketball in hand, calling out for her teammates.

“Hey, did you sign the basketball?” she repeated to her teammates, making sure every one of them would sign it.

Then, the Fever gathered in the middle of the T-Mobile Arena court, posing for a picture. There was one special guest in the middle, clad in her own, customized Fever jersey. Smiling from ear to ear; 14-year-old Bailey Lux from Carroll, Iowa, took in the moment with her idols.

“It’s been truly a spiritual uplifting,” Kraig Lux, Bailey’s dad, said. “She hasn’t stopped smiling. This is just one of those things that makes her incredibly happy, and we have to take advantage of that.”

Later that night, Bailey, Kraig, and three of her siblings sat courtside at T-Mobile Arena to watch the Las Vegas Aces and Indiana Fever play in front of a sold-out crowd.

It was a dream come true for Bailey, who has been a lifelong Hawkeye fan and developed a special relationship with former Iowa women’s basketball players Caitlin Clark and Kate Martin. At T-Mobile Arena, she was able to see all three former Hawkeyes in the WNBA play — Clark for the Fever, and Martin and Megan Gustafson for the Aces.

With the help of Martin and Clark, too, Make-a-Wish was able to make it happen for the Lux family.

“It just shows how much she really does admire us, and how much she loves basketball and has really been impacted by you know, obviously me and obviously Kate, the entire Iowa women's basketball team, and even the WNBA in general,” Clark said. “Her family is just very grateful for this opportunity. And it's just cool for me, and it's obviously really cool for her.”

Fever score: Indiana Fever can see what they strive to be in fourth-quarter collapse vs. Las Vegas Aces

Lux was diagnosed with malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor, a rare and aggressive form of sarcoma, in September 2022. She first met Clark and Martin while she was getting treatment at the Ronald McDonald House in Iowa City — the pair of teammates came to visit her and other children getting treatments, and they bonded over Mario Kart and other video games.

Clark and Martin kept in contact with Lux throughout her treatment, including when she was originally deemed cancer free in February 2023. Bailey had attended multiple practices and games at Carver-Hawkeye Arena as a guest of Iowa women’s basketball, and her dad said she never misses a game.

Bailey was cancer-free for just over a year, Kraig said, then learned in March — the same day of Iowa’s 2024 NCAA Tournament Round of 32 game in Iowa City — that her cancer had returned. The diagnosis did not have a good outlook, Kraig said, and it came just two months after the family lost their mother, Renee, to ovarian cancer.

At that point, with the news swirling in their head, they only knew one thing could temporarily ease the pain.

“We got the diagnosis, and I said, ‘You know what, there's only one medicine that's gonna make this better,’” Kraig said. “We packed up, took off, and we were in Iowa City three hours later for the game.”

Bailey’s condition has deteriorated over the past couple months, to the point the family stopped chemotherapy and other treatments. Bailey and Martin still talk almost every day. So, when Bailey told Martin about her new health issues and heartbreaking outlook, Martin immediately wanted to help.

“She told me recently that, you know, it's not looking good, and that they're stopping chemo and other treatments,” Martin said. “So, I asked her for her dad's phone number and asked if I could help in any sort of way to get them to this game, because I knew Bailey is the biggest fan ever. Like I've never met a bigger fan than her. She just got the biggest heart and she's so great.”

Lux’s diagnosis put everything into perspective for Martin, who wanted to do everything she could for the family she's grown close to.

“It's a lot bigger than basketball, like, I get to go run around on a basketball court and you know, put the ball in the hoop for 40 minutes a night, and that's like my biggest fight,” Martin said. “That's my biggest struggle. And there's kids out there fighting for their lives. There's kids out there fighting just to, you know, make it another day.”

The Lux family had already been working with Make-a-Wish in hopes of making it to this game, Kraig said, but they hit some snags in the planning process. Martin helped to smooth out those snags and make sure the Lux family was able to get to Las Vegas, even on such short notice — the entire trip materialized less than a week ago.

Bailey, who primarily uses a wheelchair, would have had troubles going through a commercial airport. So, Make-a-Wish arranged for a private jet for the Lux family from their hometown of Carroll, Iowa, to Las Vegas.

The family then attended a Las Vegas Aces practice on Monday afternoon and talked with head coach Becky Hammon and other Aces players, receiving a signed basketball from the team. She went to Fever shootaround on Tuesday morning and got a personalized jersey and another signed basketball, then received VIP treatment at the game. Bailey wore a jersey that read ‘Fever 22’ on the front for Clark, and ‘Aces 20’ on the back for Martin.

The experience was more than Kraig, Bailey, and the rest of the family could have imagined. In the days that Kraig tries to make everything as special as possible, it exceeded expectations.

“(Bailey’s cancer) is in one of those incurable states where every day we try and make things as special as possible,” Kraig said, tears in his eyes. “And boy, what an experience. These two girls, Caitlin and Kate, have been such great individuals and role models for her, and since it’s started she has been nothing but smiles.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Caitlin Clark, Kate Martin and Make-a-Wish help Iowa girl with cancer