Final score from Chase Center, Saturday night: Golden State 68, Atlanta 63. A second-year franchise is your WNBA champion. Year two. They got a trophy in year two, and we got a first-round exit and a front office with empty chairs. This is the Indiana Fever Daily Podcast for Monday, November 2nd. I'm Cera, Joey's with me, and the weekend gave us plenty. We'll wrap up Game 7, then the Fever's first front-office hire since the shake-up, what the Valkyries' title says about Indiana's roster, and Linda Cohn saying she might let Kelsey Mitchell walk.
From the Associated Press, via WNBA.com:
Williams scored her team’s final 11 points of the third quarter and dazzled through the fourth on the way to 30 points, and the Golden State Valkyries captured a championship in just their second season by beating the Atlanta Dream 68-63 in a sensational first WNBA Finals Game 7 on Saturday night.
Thirty in a Game 7. Gabby Williams just moved herself into a different tier. And she walked off with the MVP trophy. It was the first Game 7 in Finals history, and it was tight the whole way. Atlanta led 30-24 at the half, and the AP notes the halftime leader had won every game of the series up to then. Williams flipped that by scoring Golden State's last eleven points of the third quarter. Late-game possessions, Cera. You know I live for these. Walk me through the finish. Rhyne Howard tied it at 57 with 2:41 left. Williams answered with a three. Then with eleven seconds to go, Allisha Gray hit two free throws, Atlanta forced a jump ball between Gray and Williams, and Veronica Burton came up with it and made two more free throws with 5.1 seconds left. Burton, who Dallas cut two years ago. Somebody in Dallas is having a rough Monday. For Atlanta, Jordin Canada had 18, Gray 16, and Angel Reese had eight points and 12 rebounds. Kiah Stokes had 13 rebounds and two blocks for Golden State, and she's now a four-time champion. And here's what'll keep me up tonight. Joe Lacob guaranteed a championship within five years, and they did it in two. And the move people will remember is Natalie Nakase putting Kaila Charles and Tiffany Hayes in the starting lineup when they were down two games to one. Hayes is 37, and she scored 11 in Game 7. I'll say it. I'm jealous, but they earned every bit of it.
Back in Indiana, the front-office rebuild has its first new name. Joy Bassy, writing Friday in EssentiallySports:
According to IndyStar’s Chloe Peterson, the Fever have hired former Portland Trail Blazers scouting manager Sheri Sam as assistant general manager. She starts November 2, focusing on scouting and analytics.
November 2nd. That's today. Welcome to the building, Sheri. It's her first day. The IndyStar broke it, and ESPN's Kareem Copeland confirmed it through a source on Friday. Sam had been Portland's scouting manager since 2022, evaluating college and pro players. And she can play. Ten WNBA seasons, titles with Seattle in 2004 and Detroit in 2008, and a season with the Fever in 2007. They made a second hire too. Vernard Hollins, who played at Wright State and then ten seasons overseas, announced on X that he's joining Indiana as a scout. Robin Lundberg at SI says that background could help on the international side. Okay, here's my problem. Where's the GM? You're hiring the assistant before the boss. Plenty of people are asking that. In fan reaction MARCA rounded up, one supporter asked whether the GM wouldn't want to pick their own assistant, and another told Clark not to sign her extension. But Bassy reports the Fever had been considering Sam for this job since the summer, so it wasn't thrown together last week. Fine. But telling Caitlin not to sign over an assistant GM hire is a lot. Lundberg's argument for it comes down to the cap. If Mitchell comes back, there's not much room left, so a lot of the roster could be near-minimum deals. So finding cheap talent matters more than usual. The GM search hasn't changed. Excel Search and Advisory is helping, and there's still no timeline. Scouts first, boss later. Weird order, but if they can find me a backup big, I'm happy.
So what can Indiana learn from the champions? Grant Young of Sports Illustrated, writing Sunday:
Many felt like the Valkyries' ceiling was capped because they didn't have a true superstar on their roster. And while Gabby Williams ascended to superstardom during the postseason, the fact is that Golden State became the first WNBA champion without a player selected to an All-WNBA team that season.
No All-WNBA players, and they won it all. We had two First Teamers and went home in the first round. That's exactly his point. Clark and Mitchell both made First Team, and he calls Boston arguably one of the three best centers in the game. Now look at the defense. Golden State led the league in opponent points per game at 75.1, opponent field-goal percentage at 41.4, and opponent three-point percentage at 32.6. And us? Indiana had the best offense in the league, a 117 offensive rating and 96 points a game. But it gave up 90.4 a night, fifth-worst in the league. That's the season in one sentence. Score 96 and still be sweating it out at the end. To be fair to Young, he's not saying break up the stars. He calls Golden State the exception, and his takeaway is that Indiana needs more depth around them. Jeremy Beren of Sporting News gets to a similar place in his way-too-early power rankings. He has the Fever fifth for 2027 and says they need to get better on defense while adding cheap shooting around Clark, which he calls a tough balance. If they pull it off, he thinks Indiana could be a Finals team. Fifth in November. I can live with that. It's the same hole we've been talking about all month. No Fever player made an All-Defensive team, and the two new scouts' job is now finding defenders who don't cost much.
Last, a loud take on the biggest decision of the winter. AOL picked up what ESPN veteran Linda Cohn said on her show this weekend:
“I’m over the Kelsey Mitchell thing. She can go if she has to,” Cohn said. “I still believe you have to build around Caitlin and Aliyah Boston. You have to improve the perimeter defense, and you have to find someone to pick up the scoring slack.”
Over it? She just had one of the best scoring seasons the league has ever seen. Cohn isn't knocking her game. She said everyone knows Mitchell is talented, and that chasing the big money is her right as an unrestricted free agent. Her condition is that Indiana finds other free agents who can carry the scoring. That's a huge if. Who's out there who scores like that? AOL lays out what you'd be replacing. Mitchell set the league's single-season records for total points and threes. She averaged a career-best 24.7 points, second in the league, with a record 27 straight 20-point games, all on a 1.4 million dollar supermax she signed in April. And remember what she said in October. She has to be selfish. Her word, days after the loss in Las Vegas. But don't forget the other side. On Friday we covered Sports Business Journal's report that signing Mitchell is the next GM's first order of business. Cohn is giving her opinion. That's not the team's plan. And Sporting News' Beren writes that Mitchell doesn't seem too convinced about coming back. That's his read. Nobody has reported where her head is, and free agency doesn't open until January.
If this show is part of your offseason routine, please rate and review the Indiana Fever Daily Podcast wherever you listen. It helps other Fever fans find us during the quiet months. And if you think Cohn's right about Kelsey, put it in the review. I'll read it. I won't enjoy it.
Before we go, one Clark date for the calendar. ChiCitySports reports she'll be on Good Morning America tomorrow, the day her children's book comes out, and on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Friday. A November book tour. Offseason Caitlin is busy. We're back tomorrow, Tuesday, with anything from Sheri Sam's first day and the GM search. The Indiana Fever Daily Podcast is a Lantern Podcast. I'm Cera, that was Joey, and we'll talk soon.