Caitlin Clark called Kelsey Mitchell a good soul and said she wants her back. Question is whether Mitchell's listening. Quick context first. At last Saturday's exit interviews, general manager Amber Cox called the attacks on the Fever fanbase baseless and said they need to stop, especially from the media. Hours later Kelsey Mitchell, headed to unrestricted free agency after a record scoring season, said competing for fans who may or may not like you is hard, and that playing in Indiana hasn't always been easy. Bomani Jones argued that could weigh on her free-agency decision. This is the Indiana Fever Daily Podcast, and the season's over but the feelings aren't. Plus Aliyah Boston owning the Fever's mistakes, and a TV bar the semifinals are chasing. We start with Clark, on the record. ESPN, with Kareem Copeland:
"As far as people that have used me to demonstrate racist rhetoric or hate or discrimination, that's not something I stand for," Clark said. "That's never been something I've stood for. For those of you that know me, you know that's not what I'm about.
"Good soul." That's the phrase I can't shake. Kelsey says Saturday that showing up for fans who may or may not like you is hard, and Caitlin goes and talks to her directly before she ever gets to a podium. So that exit-week fan fight, Cox defending the fanbase, Mitchell saying Indiana hasn't been easy, finally got Clark's answer Thursday. Straight from the franchise player: people using her name to push racist rhetoric, hate or discrimination? She said that's never been what she stands for, and it's not how she was raised. And she said the word. Racist. No "negativity," no "the noise." She brought up Coco Gauff too, so she sees this as bigger than one locker room in Indianapolis. Mitchell's nine seasons in, unrestricted, coming off the single-season scoring record, and she's already said basketball won't be the only thing deciding it. Clark's message was that a lot of great things come with playing here too. Whether that's enough is Kelsey's call. From Kareem Copeland at ESPN:
And sure enough, the Fever had the No. 1 offense in WNBA history, averaging 96.0 points per game in the regular season. Kelsey Mitchell (24.7 points per game) and Clark (22.3) finished ranked No. 2 and No. 3 in points per game and were the highest-scoring teammates in league history. But throughout, off-court drama surrounded the team.
"Championship or bust." That's Myisha Hines-Allen, a week before Game 3, in Kareem Copeland's ESPN piece. And then... yeah. Bust. The bust started before Game 3, though. That swoon in the last days of the regular season dropped them to the six seed, and the six seed gets the defending champs in a best-of-three. That's asking a lot of three games. But 96 a game! Best offense in league history. Mitchell and Clark are the highest-scoring teammates the WNBA's ever had, and we're out in round one? I still can't sit with that. Score 96 and A'ja Wilson still drops 36 on you. Copeland writes that the focus could never just be on basketball, and after the Clark exit interview we just played, fair. But that box score's got its own defensive complaint. And within 48 hours there's another controversy. I'd just like one week where these players get to be sad about losing a Game 3. Jack Maloney, writing in CBS Sports:
The Fever paid Mitchell, 30, the supermax this season and have the cap space to re-sign her, but they'll face plenty of competition from the rest of the league. Mitchell, who said in her exit interview that she plans to be "selfish" during her free agency process, appears open to playing elsewhere after spending the first nine seasons of her career with Indiana, the team that drafted her at No. 2 overall in the 2018 WNBA Draft.
"Selfish." That's Kelsey's word from her exit interview, and honestly? Nine seasons, drafted second overall by this franchise, took a one-year deal last summer. She's earned selfish. It still makes my stomach drop. Jack Maloney at CBS has the Fever paying her the supermax this year, with the cap space to do it again. The three contenders he lists are his read on fits. Nobody's reporting a visit. What I keep coming back to is the basketball cost. She went for 24.7 a night, a league-record 1,086 points, and next to Clark's 22.3 that's the highest-scoring pair of teammates the league's ever had. And they still lost a winner-take-all game to Vegas. Again! If I'm Kelsey, I'm asking whether this roster ever fixes the other end of the floor. Fair, but flip it. You heard Clark a minute ago: "we need her, we love her." Let Mitchell walk and you've still got the same defensive and size holes, plus a 45 percent three-point hole. Good luck buying 64.5 true shooting with leftover money. Here's Athlon Sports:
“Win more games in the regular season so you can start at home. How about that?” Boston said on her “Post Moves” podcast when co-host Candace Parker asked her what she learned from the playoffs. Boston proceeded to highlight the Fever’s major flaw during the series, noting that there were plenty of times when they had “empty possessions.”
"Win more games in the regular season so you can start at home. How about that?" That's Aliyah on Post Moves, with Candace Parker just letting it sit there. Twenty-eight and sixteen, in the top-four mix until the last two games, and then Games 1 and 3 both land in Vegas. Home court's the easy half. The phrase I'd circle is "empty possessions," from her own mouth. Put that next to the ESPN piece we just hit: a 96-point offense can cover a lot of defensive leaks, right up until a series slows down. And in a Game 3, empty means a lazy post entry or a live-ball turnover, and then A'ja's already running the other way. She had thirty-six! You can't trade blanks with thirty-six. And Boston held up her end. Nineteen and ten in the decider, nearly twenty a night for the series. So her diagnosis points at stops and size around her this offseason. She already brought her share of the buckets. From Dan Zaksheske at OutKick:
The Indiana Fever's regular-season games on major broadcast networks averaged more than twice the audience of the WNBA semifinal openers on Oct. 4. And those playoff games were on ABC and NBC. An OutKick review of Indiana's 10 regular-season games on ABC, CBS and NBC found an average audience of approximately 2.32 million viewers. The two semifinal openers averaged about 1.16 million.
OutKick did the math so we didn't have to. Ten Fever games on ABC, CBS and NBC, about 2.32 million a game. The two semifinal openers on October 4th? About 1.16. And the headline reads like the semis were a funeral. Use it as a ruler, though. Zaksheske's own line was that the league has to turn Clark fans into fans of everybody else. Well, there's the gap, in black and white. Roughly a million viewers a game who show up for Indiana and haven't followed the bracket yet. Sure, but 1.2 million for New York–Atlanta on ABC? A semifinal opener a few years ago would've killed for that number. Both things are true. The Fever are huge, and the semis drew real people. The number that sticks with me is September 27th. Fever–Vegas, 2.11 million on ABC, opposite the NFL. A first-round game. And after the exit-interview stuff we just went through, that audience was watching Mitchell and Boston just as much as Clark. Which is exactly why I want her back. You don't hand 2.32 million viewers a team that just lost half its backcourt. If you're enjoying the Indiana Fever Daily Podcast, please subscribe or leave us a review wherever you're listening. Reviews help other Fever fans find the show, and we appreciate the support.
We're watching Clark's first contract talks with the Fever front office and ownership, as she weighs signing the EPIC extension or leaving cap room for the roster.
Links to every story are in the show notes, so check out whichever ones caught your attention. That's the Indiana Fever Daily Podcast for today. We'll be back with the next episode on Monday. This is a Lantern Podcast.