A gym selfie, a two-word comment, and a spreadsheet. That's the Fever's Friday. And somehow all three of them made me feel better about this offseason. This is the Indiana Fever Daily Podcast. I'm Cera, across from me is Joey, and it's Friday, October 23rd. Today: Aliyah Boston is back in the gym, Kelsey Mitchell weighs in on Caitlin Clark's season-wrap post, new data on just how far ahead the Fever are on social media, and Enes Kanter says the league didn't want Indiana going deep.
Athlon Sports, with an update on Aliyah Boston's knee:
While Boston’s recovery could take 3-6 months, she is expected to be ready for the start of the 2027 WNBA season.
That's what I wanted to hear. When the team announced the surgery they didn't give a timetable, and my brain went straight to the worst case. Right, and to be precise, that window comes from Athlon, not from the Fever. What Boston showed herself is a photo from the gym on her Instagram story, and Athlon says that means the rehab process has started, about a week after the arthroscopic surgery on October 14th. And remember what she did on that knee. Athlon traces the torn lateral meniscus back to February, playing for Phantom FC in Unrivaled. Then she plays 40 of 44 regular-season games, all three playoff games, and puts up a career-high 16.1 points on 52.8 percent shooting. Plus eight rebounds, three assists and a fourth All-Star nod. Playing through it all year makes the surgery timing make sense. The question we flagged earlier this week is Unrivaled. She's still listed as committed, and even the short end of a three-to-six-month range only gets you to mid-January. Honestly? Skip it. She's in year two of a four-year, 6.3 million dollar deal. The Fever need her in May, not in a three-on-three gym in January. That's your opinion, not the team's. Nobody has said she's pulling out. For now, the headline is simple. Rehab's started, and Athlon has her on track for opening day.
NDTV, on a Thursday-night exchange between the Fever's two lead guards:
Mitchell responded with “da one,” showing her support for her backcourt partner after a season in which both guards played major roles for Indiana.
Da one! Two words, and I've read them about forty times. Here's what she was responding to. Clark posted a 19-photo collage on Instagram Thursday evening with the caption, thankful for a season of being healthy and doing what I love, had so much fun this year, but now it's back to work. Then a tease that more shoes are on the way. Healthy is the key word. Thirteen games in 2025. This year, 22.3 points and 8.3 assists a night. Mitchell at a career-high 24.7. Third and fourth in the MVP vote, on the same team. And that's why every Mitchell post gets read like a tea leaf. Clark has said publicly she wants her back. Mitchell has said she plans to be selfish in free agency. A comment on Instagram doesn't change either of those things. I know, I know. But you don't call somebody da one if you're halfway out the door. Let me have this. Granted, for the weekend. One more detail from Grant Young at Sports Illustrated. The last photo in Clark's collage is a behind-the-back pass to Makayla Timpson with three Chicago Sky defenders on her, and one of them is DiJonai Carrington. Of all the photos. After the eye poke in 2024 and that Flagrant 2 ejection in August after the scrap with Sophie? Fever fans are going to frame that one. Young does point out Clark didn't pick who was guarding her. But he's right that the fanbase will enjoy it.
Rachel Axon, writing in Sports Business Journal, on a new Mondo Metrics report covering all 15 WNBA teams:
Indiana stood alone in the data, with 82 of the biggest 100 posts coming from the Fever and its 3,400 engagements per post hitting 10x everyone else.
Eighty-two of the top hundred. That's not leading the league, that's a different league. The scale of it is the striking part. The report looked at 72,000 posts across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and X. The Fever pulled 89.4 million likes, comments and shares. The other 14 teams combined? 96.8 million. And Facebook! Seventy-nine percent of all WNBA team engagement on Facebook was the Fever. Somebody's aunt in Kokomo is carrying this franchise. Possibly. Mondo's CEO Nick Cicero gives credit to strategy, though, not just Clark. He says the Fever post about twice as much as the average team, lean into series and TikTok challenges, and put the players in the content. Clark, Mitchell and Boston all ranked in the top five most common caption phrases. So it's the whole roster, which is what I keep saying. People want the personalities. The data backs you up on that. Birthdays, personal moments, jokes and trends drove the most engagement. Game highlights and tunnel fits landed in the bottom half. And Cicero warns volume alone isn't the answer. Portland posted more than almost anyone and got the fewest reactions per post, while Dallas made 5 percent of the posts and drew 10 percent of the engagement. Put that next to the TV numbers we covered earlier this month, where Fever games led every broadcast partner. The attention is real everywhere you look. And it's leverage, too. When you're pitching free agents this winter, being the most-watched, most-followed team in the league is part of the sales deck.
Luke Randall at HITC, on Enes Kanter's latest comments about the league:
And on the topic of the Indiana Fever, Kanter isn’t buying the league’s neutrality, claiming WNBA higher-ups were terrified of them going deep in the playoffs because of the off-court noise.
Here we go. Some context. Speaking on the Sage Steele Show, Kanter pointed to A'ja Wilson, who wasn't fined or suspended for stepping toward and confronting a fan during Game 2 against Indiana. He contrasted that with his own removal from a courtside seat earlier this season after Natasha Cloud came over and confronted him. Kanter says Wilson should've been thrown out and suspended for the next game. Look, I'll complain about a whistle with anybody. And the Wilson thing drew real criticism about double standards. But the league secretly not wanting its biggest TV draw in the playoffs? That doesn't add up. Kanter kind of makes that point himself. In the same answer he says, I don't know if the league wants the Fever to go deep, and then notes the ratings are almost double when they're in it. He calls it a double-edged sword. So the evidence is that he doesn't know. Cool. That's his claim, and he offers no evidence beyond the Wilson comparison. The reason it's worth a minute is that it's the latest piece of the noise around this team that we've been tracking all month, the noise Elle Duncan described as Clark being used as an avatar. And every time someone outside the building turns the Fever into a culture-war prop, it lands on the players. Including the ones Indiana is trying to re-sign.
Quick favor. If this show has kept you company since the Fever's season ended, leave us a rating or a short review wherever you're listening. It's the best way for other Fever fans to find us during a long offseason.
Game 4 is Saturday in Atlanta. Either the Dream finish it at home, or we get a Game 5 on Monday. We'll sort through whatever happens on Monday, October 26th. For Joey, I'm Cera, and this was the Indiana Fever Daily Podcast, part of the Lantern Podcasts family. Have a good weekend.