The Fever's general manager says the attacks on their fanbase have no basis in reality. On the same day, their best scorer said playing here hasn't always been easy. That was Saturday, at Indiana's end-of-season exit interviews, two days after the Aces closed out the series 94-83 in Las Vegas. Amber Cox, Stephanie White and the players all talked, and the fallout ran through the weekend. This is the Indiana Fever Daily Podcast. Today, the fight over Fever fans, whether White is coming back, and the defense-first shopping list for 2027. The offseason moves fast from here. Follow the show and you won't miss a signing.
Kareem Copeland, reporting from Cox's end-of-season news conference:
But here's the fact: We did not have one fan pointed out by a player who violated the WNBA code of conduct this season. Not one fan was removed from a game.... Our fans love this team. They're going to cheer, they're going to boo, and sometimes they might point.
Context. This came out of Game 2, when A'ja Wilson crossed the baseline at a fan who'd stood and pointed at her. Wilson got a technical. The fan was escorted out of the arena bowl, then allowed back after arena security found no code-of-conduct violation. Wilson called his behavior unacceptable. And the pushback came fast. Brianna Turner, who played for Indiana in 2025, is now with the Aces, and is treasurer of the players' union, called it, quote, an unequivocally false statement. She said players inside and outside the organization have repeatedly complained about the fanbase. Not all Indy fans, she wrote, but a trend. Here's the part I can't get past. Kelsey Mitchell, same morning, said people don't understand how much they endure. She talked about the hate in her DMs, and said being on Clark's team means taking flak just for being there. She called the organization unbelievable, but said really trying to be yourself hasn't always been easy. That's the one that hurts. I get Cox defending seventeen thousand people a night. Most of them are great. But when your own franchise scorer is saying that, you can't lead with not one fan was removed. And it's not a quiet column week. Gregg Doyel at the IndyStar called this an inflection point, maybe a breaking point. That matters more with Mitchell about to be an unrestricted free agent.
Chloe Peterson, writing in the IndyStar:
White finished her second season as the Fever’s coach with a first-round exit in the playoffs, which was a step back from their semifinal appearance in 2025. Indiana has finished sixth in the standings each of her seasons as head coach, and the Fever saw minimal improvement this season despite a healthy team, including superstar Caitlin Clark.
So naturally the question was asked. White's answer: she feels the organization's support, no doubt, but at the end of the day it's their decision. She'd love the opportunity and hopes to keep coaching. Honest, and a little unusual. Cox didn't commit either. She said the expectation is always a championship, they didn't meet it, and everybody gets back to the drawing board, including Steph and the coaching staff. Come on. Franchise-record 28 wins. She got booed in her own building, the lieutenant governor called for her firing, and she still had the locker room. You saw Boston walk her off the floor in Game 3. All true. Peterson's fair point is that a lot of this is front office. Roster construction kept the staff from ever settling a rotation. They were still tinkering with minutes in the final week of the regular season. That's on more than the coach.
Joy Bassy at EssentiallySports, on what the exit interviews say about the roster:
And the one thing the Fever can invest in is, of course, their defense — something both Amber Cox and White pointed to. Cox said the team needs defenders who can shut down elite scorers and more production from the wing, and White cited “schematics and personnel” as the route to improving.
Finally! Ninety points a night allowed in the regular season. Stopping elite scorers is the whole job against Vegas, and Wilson just put 36 on us in Game 3. Saturday we said Mitchell is priority one. Now we have her own words. She said it's too early to tell what she needs to do, that she has to be selfish about what's best for her and her family. But asked if she'd be fine finishing her career in Indiana, it was, heck yeah. Cox says the goal is for her to retire a Fever girl. Here's the money problem, though. EssentiallySports figures a Mitchell supermax plus Clark joining Boston at the top could tie up roughly sixty percent of the cap in three players. Where do the wing defenders come from? And Boston played the whole year through it. The right lower-leg injury dates back to Unrivaled in February. She said it hindered her in some games and she missed others, and still put up sixteen and eight on almost fifty-three percent shooting.
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We'll be back tomorrow with more from the Fever offseason. Links to every story are in the show notes, so check out the ones you want to dig into. That's the Indiana Fever Daily Podcast for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.