Cera, I need you to confirm something before I lose my mind. Caitlin Clark is hiring her own general manager? No. Her agency's search arm is helping somebody else hire one. It's a real distinction, and we'll spend some time on it. Welcome to the Indiana Fever Daily Podcast. It's Friday, October 30th, I'm Cera, and Joey is here too. On the docket: who's actually running the GM search, the report that Kelsey Mitchell is job one for whoever gets it, a Finals that's going the distance, and Clark courtside for LeBron James and the Sixers.
Chloe Peterson, reporting for the IndyStar:
Excel will assist in finding candidates, but the PS&E ownership group will make the final decision with input from players, likely including Clark and Boston, and other key people around the organization. Excel Sports Management, which owns Excel Search & Advisory, also represents Clark.
So the headlines saying Clark is in charge of the search were what, exactly? Overcooked. MARCA ran that headline, and its own story says Clark will not make the final hiring decision. The news broke Wednesday. Grant Young at SI credits Rachel Axon of Sports Business Journal with the first report, and Peterson confirmed it through a source. Since the firings a week ago, all we've had from the team is national search, no timeline. This is the first concrete step. And there's a second piece in there people skipped past. Right. Pacers Sports and Entertainment won't replace Kelly Krauskopf. CEO Mel Raines will run business operations herself. So the GM chair is the only basketball seat being filled, and that person runs day-to-day basketball operations and personnel. Okay, and look, I want Caitlin in that room. She told everyone at exit interviews she'd show free agents around town. Why wouldn't you use that? Young makes a version of that argument. He says it isn't as strange as it looks, because Excel runs a lot of women's sports executive searches. He names the NWSL, the Portland Thorns, the Atlanta Dream and the Toronto Tempo. Peterson adds that Excel is also helping the WNBA find its next commissioner after Cathy Engelbert's retirement. So the firm picking the league's next commissioner is also picking our GM. That's either reassuring or hilarious. Here's what I'd keep an eye on. Young ends by saying fans can rest assured Clark will have approved whoever gets hired. That's his read, not reporting. And whoever does get hired will have Clark's own EPIC extension on the desk, with the search run by a firm owned by her agency. Fair. But I'd rather have that than a GM who walks in and doesn't get along with the best player in the building. Still no timeline, per Peterson. The practical deadline is free agency, which opens in January.
Which brings us to who that GM calls first. Luke Randall, writing Thursday and citing Sports Business Journal:
Per Sports Business Journal, the next GM’s absolute first order of business is getting a deal done with unrestricted free agent Kelsey Mitchell, before turning attention to building out the roster around their star talent.
Thank you. That's the sentence I wanted yesterday. Here's why it matters. Yesterday we walked through Grant Young's argument that a new GM might look at Mitchell and Clark as too offense-first and spend that money somewhere else. This is the other side of it, attributed to SBJ: Mitchell first, then everything else. As it should be. Look at what she just did. Randall's numbers: a career-best 24.7 points a game and 45 percent from three, good for third in MVP voting. He says she walks into unrestricted free agency holding maximum leverage. Maximum leverage is a polite way of saying it's going to cost a lot. And the room is tight. Chloe Peterson, quoted by MARCA, said the new GM should above all be someone who can navigate this cap situation, and that Indiana is already running out of space. Boston's four-year, 6.3 million dollar extension is on the books. Clark is eligible for her EPIC extension. And Sophie Cunningham is an unrestricted free agent too. So step one is Kelsey, and step two is figuring out how to pay for step one. Peterson had one more requirement. She said the new GM needs a form of thick skin, because of the microscope around this team. Put that in the job posting. Bold it.
Now the Finals, from the WNBA:
Allisha Gray (23 PTS) knocks down five three-pointers alongside a 21-point performance from Rhyne Howard to lead Atlanta over Golden State in Game 6 of the 2026 WNBA Finals (80-69). The best-of-seven series is now tied 3-3, with Game 7 taking place on Saturday October 31 (8 PM ET, USA Network/Peacock).
Seven games. Halloween night. Somebody wrote this. Thursday in Atlanta, Golden State had a chance to close it out and didn't. Quick catch-up: the Valkyries won Games 4 and 5 after Natalie Nakase changed her starting five, and they'd gone up three to two. Now the Dream have answered with eighty points, which is more than either team scored in the two games before it. Gray with five threes in an elimination game. That's a cold-blooded night. Game 7 is back at Chase Center Saturday night, eight Eastern. Either way, the league gets a first-time champion. And there's a Fever angle, because there always is. Atlanta is one of the teams Excel worked with. Careful with that one. Young credits the Dream's moves this year, trading for Angel Reese and signing DeWanna Bonner, and says the Excel connection has clearly worked out. But the IndyStar lists the Dream search Excel handled as a CRO hire, not a general manager. Fine, I'll stop drawing lines. But Atlanta built a Finals team fast, and I'm allowed to be jealous about it.
And to finish, Clark at the Pacers game Wednesday night. Here's Sixers guard Tyrese Maxey, as quoted by the IndyStar:
Honestly, that's just another person that I like to watch. She cold, she nice. Seeing her today was really cool. Sometimes you try not to fan out, but it was really cool seeing her. It's her building; she plays here too.
She cold, she nice. A two-time All-Star trying not to fan out. I love it. The game itself went Philadelphia's way, 114-109, on a 39-21 fourth quarter. The Pacers were shorthanded, with Tyrese Haliburton out with a hamstring injury, per Athlon. Pascal Siakam had 26 and 11. And she was there for LeBron. Mostly. It was James's first game against Indiana in a Sixers uniform. The IndyStar says Clark sat courtside, went through the tunnel to the visitors' locker room afterward, met Maxey and spoke privately with James. She, like Haliburton, publicly pitched LeBron to sign with Indiana this summer. That pitch didn't work. She's already recruiting, and she can't even sign anybody yet. One side note. MARCA ran a piece built on the same night. A video showed Clark, Lexie Hull and Aliyah Boston supporting the Pacers, with Sophie Cunningham not there, and MARCA calls that another possible sign a reunion is far from certain. She skipped one Pacers game in October. That's not a free agency tell. That's a Wednesday. MARCA concedes the video doesn't confirm anything. I'd file it there.
We want your input for the search committee that didn't ask us. If you got thirty minutes with a GM candidate, what's the first thing you'd ask? Send it to indianafeverdailyfancast at lantern podcasts dot com. If the answer is about rebounding, I'll read it twice.
So Saturday night, somebody wins their first title. And Indiana keeps waiting on a name. We'll have Game 7 and whatever comes out of the search when we're back Monday, November 2nd. Enjoy the weekend. This has been the Indiana Fever Daily Podcast, part of the Lantern Podcasts lineup. I'm Cera, Joey's signing off with me, and thanks for listening.