Fever coach makes Kelsey Mitchell plan crystal-clear ahead of WNBA free agency originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Who is the Indiana Fever’s franchise player?
For many, that would be Caitlin Clark, the superstar point guard who ended Indiana’s eight-year playoff drought in 2024 on her way to winning Rookie of the Year honors. But though Clark easily poised to ascend to even greater heights in her second WNBA season, injuries disrupted her; she played only 13 games in 2025.
For Indiana head coach Stephanie White, the Fever’s franchise player is their longest-tenured star: shooting guard Kelsey Mitchell, whose pending free agency could be a defining offseason story for a team on the rise.
“She’s been so important,” White told the Indianapolis Star’s Brian Haenchen and Chloe Peterson in an interview published Wednesday. “I said this last year, Kelsey deserves to go through this stage of her Indiana Fever career. She’s been through sort of the worst of the worst, for lack of a better term, in and out of the building; growing pains with getting the organization back.”
MORE: Is Caitlin Clark the WNBA’s Taylor Swift? Fever coach blasts ‘clickbait’ around star guard
Mitchell assumed the scoring burden in Indiana amid Clark’s struggles with injuries. The three-time All-Star averaged a career-best 20.2 points per game in the regular season, and she stepped up even more in the playoffs, where she averaged 22.3 points as Indiana — without Clark, Sophie Cunningham and others — came within minutes of reaching the WNBA Finals.
With the Fever settling into life as a contender, White thinks Mitchell’s best is yet to come. Indiana won’t be able to keep everyone relative to last year, and Mitchell will command significant free agent interest. But White made it clear how highly her premier shooting guard is valued in Indy, and she affirmed that Mitchell is the Fever’s top offseason priority in a blow to other interested teams.
“We want to continue to build around her and continue for her to have success. I thought she was so instrumental in everything that we did,” White said. “You lose everybody that we lost, and Kelsey Mitchell just kept getting better and better and better as the year progressed. And I think that while it’s hard to believe she’s eight years or whatever in this league, that there’s still so much in her. I tell her every day, I love being her coach and I want to continue to be her coach for as long as she’ll be a member of the Indiana Fever.”
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