We signed off Friday talking about gym photos and Instagram comments. By Friday night, the Fever had no president and no general manager. I took one weekend off from refreshing my phone. One. Welcome to the Indiana Fever Daily Podcast. I'm Cera, Joey's here with me, and it's Monday, October 26th. On the rundown: Kelly Krauskopf steps down and Amber Cox is fired, The Athletic's reporting on how players around the league see Indiana, two Fever guards on the All-WNBA First Team, and Myisha Hines-Allen picks up a whistle and a clipboard. One tap on follow, and we'll be back in your ears before you know it.
Jack Maloney, writing for CBS Sports:
The Indiana Fever are undergoing a major front-office shakeup. President of basketball and business operations Kelly Krauskopf has stepped down and general manager Amber Cox has been fired.
Both of them. On the same day. In the middle of the most important offseason this franchise has had in years. The order matters. The team announced Krauskopf's decision Friday morning, then announced Cox's departure later in the day. And Maloney notes Krauskopf told the organization she was leaving before the season even ended, so there's presumably been some succession planning. Presumably. Cox, though, that one has the feel of a decision, not a retirement. Krauskopf's résumé is a big one. She was the Fever's original president and GM in 2000. Thirteen playoff trips in nineteen seasons, including twelve straight from 2005 to 2016, still a league record, and the 2012 title. That's a franchise legend. But the second run is what people will judge, and the knock is fair. Three straight playoff trips with Clark, Boston and Mitchell, and nothing past the semifinals. Maloney is blunt about the roster. He calls the Monique Billings and Lexie Hull deals, about 800 thousand each next season, a pair of disastrous contracts. And he points out that if Mitchell and Clark both come back, even at a slight discount, three players would eat roughly 60 percent of the cap. Fun first week for whoever gets the job. Pacers Sports and Entertainment says it will run a national search. No timeline has been announced. And Steph White? Because I know what everyone's thinking. Per The Athletic, she's expected to stay, with one year left on her deal. But Elaine Blum at Sports Illustrated writes that White could be next, and notes it's rare for a new GM to keep a coach somebody else hired. Clark has backed her every time she's been asked. I just hope whoever comes in actually talks to the players before blowing it up.
Jeremy Beren at Sporting News, on a report The Athletic published that same Friday, before any of the front-office news broke:
A new report in The Athletic on Friday lays bare the difficulties that the Fever franchise is facing this offseason -- not necessarily from a salary cap perspective, but from a reputational one, which is undoubtedly more concerning as Indiana tries to add impact talent around Clark and Aliyah Boston.
This is the part that actually scares me. You can fix a cap sheet. This is harder. Here's what Annie Costabile and Brian Hamilton reported, and it's all on background from agents. One agent says clients regularly disable their social media accounts before and after games against Indiana because of the toxic messages they say they get. A different agent says clients have reported being called the N-word at Fever games multiple times. That's ugly. There's no other word for it. And to be fair to both sides, the Fever say they've received no complaints about racial slurs from fans at home games. That denial is part of the report. Then there's the irony. The Athletic also reported that Cox planned to go to the league and the players' union after the Finals to take on what they called player-fan dynamics. Hours later, she was out. Which flips what she said in her exit interview, when she called the attacks on the fanbase baseless. We covered that in early October. Right. And the same week, Mitchell said that showing up to compete for fans who may or may not like you is hard. Look, most of the people in that building are great. But if your own star free agent is saying it's hard, you don't get to wave it away. Beren's point is that this hurts in free agency more than any cap number. Maloney's piece ends in the same place. Repairing the reputation is on the to-do list, right next to Mitchell and Clark.
Now some actual basketball. Robin Lundberg, writing for Sports Illustrated:
Clark was not the only member of the Fever to make All-WNBA First Team. Her backcourt mate Kelsey Mitchell joined her, with A'ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart, and Olivia Miles rounding out the five.
Two of the five! From one backcourt! Can we just enjoy that for a minute? We can. The league announced it Saturday. For Clark, it's her second First Team nod, after the one she got as a rookie in 2024. Lundberg's framing is that she's made it in both of her healthy seasons, since 2025 was only 13 games. Twenty-two point three points, third in the league. Eight point three assists, second. Forty games. And Lundberg says she had more games with 25 and 10 this season than any other player has had in a career. And Mitchell's case was just as strong. Lundberg calls it perhaps the most efficient high-volume scoring season in league history, with the most total points anyone has scored in a single year. She averaged a career-high 24.7, second in the league. And she's a free agent. How do you not pay her? Lundberg asks the harder question. Whether building around an offense-heavy backcourt is the right approach in the first place, given how the defense looked. He calls Mitchell the single most important decision for whoever replaces Cox. I'll take the record-setting offense and figure out the defense. You don't let a First Team guard walk.
Stephanie Kaloi at High Post Hoops, on a quieter roster question:
On October 24, Hines-Allen's offseason plans were confirmed: she will join the coaching staff at Monmouth in her home state of New Jersey.
Coach Myisha! Okay, that's genuinely cool. She'll be an assistant at Monmouth for the 2026-27 college season, bringing nine years of WNBA experience. Kaloi is careful here, though. Hines-Allen is an unrestricted free agent and hasn't said whether she plans to keep playing. After that On to the next post earlier this month, a lot of fans already assumed she was gone. This doesn't settle it, but it doesn't scream comeback either. The money's small either way. She made 315 thousand this season, and Kaloi figures a return would look about the same. The bigger number, per Kaloi, is a Clark EPIC extension that could pay her 1.3 million. So whoever the new GM is, they're also hunting for backup bigs on a budget. Again. Kaloi says going to find someone new seems to be the theme for the Fever these days. Hard to argue with her this week.
We want to hear from you on this one. Who should run the Fever's front office, and what should their first phone call be? Send it to indianafeverdailyfancast at lantern podcasts dot com. And if your answer is just Kelsey Mitchell's agent, honestly, fair.
A national search, a free agent with First Team hardware, and a coach waiting to meet her new boss. Plenty to chew on. We'll keep tracking it, and we're back tomorrow, Tuesday. I'm Cera, that was Joey, and you've been listening to the Indiana Fever Daily Podcast, a Lantern Podcast.