Stephanie White was introduced as coach of the Indiana Fever on Monday, and she was flanked by Fever general manager Amber Cox and team president Kelly Krauskopf. The dais alone is an indication the Fever are serious about not just replicating their 2012 championship season, but exceeding it.
Shortly after its first .500 or better season since 2016, the Fever introduced one and welcomed back two prominent names. The trio of staff is now responsible for making sure the Aliyah Boston and Caitlin Clark years live in renown in the history of the organization, the league and all of basketball.
Here are four things we learned about the future of the Fever from White's press conference.
A homecoming
If the press conference felt familiar to long-time Fever fans, that's because it was. In the media room at Gainbridge Fieldhouse sat the past, the present and presumably the future of the organization.
Krauskopf is credited for shaping the Fever into one of the winningest WNBA franchises when she served as president and general manager from 2000 to 2018. Her team competed in three WNBA Finals in seven seasons, including in 2012, when Hall of Fame coach Lin Dunn led hall of Fame player Tamika Catchings to the 2012 WNBA title.
She also acquired a home-grown guard in a trade during the 2000 Expansion Draft for Australian guard Sandy Brondello. The once Indiana National Player of the Year and Purdue All-American would play four seasons before joining the coaching staff in 2011. That same guard, Stephanie White, returned home once again under Krauskopf's leadership.
"This is coming home," White said. "For me, it has been such an experience with this franchise for nearly 25 years from Day 1, and the opportunity to come home and to lead this young, exciting, talented team, to work with Kelly again, who is, you know, the best architect in the WNBA and has put together championship teams year in and year out.
"It feels like home, and that's because it is, and I am so incredibly honored, so humbled, so thankful, grateful and excited to lead this franchise and taking it to another level."
White, who spent the last two seasons as coach of the Connecticut Sun, also noted the timing for the homecoming was divine. After an emotional exit interview in Connecticut, White relished the opportunity to pursue a role where her professional and personal goals aligned.
"I'm at the point in my career where making a decision for one reason or another isn't really good enough anymore. It's got to be about professional opportunity. It's got to be about the personal opportunities," White said. "And for me, being near my family ... it's important. There's always a time in your life where you feel like everything in your life needs to be grounded... when it can all come together, there's no better feeling."
With her heart, her home and her head firmly planted back in Indiana, the mission is clear: become a playoff contender.
Expedite the winning process
When Krauskopf returned to the organization in October, the vision for the future was clear: to hang another banner at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. That meant moving up the timeline originally set by the organization after securing two back-to-back first overall draft picks.
"Christie Sides did a great job. And as we move forward, my thought process was how do we how do we maximize what we have, and how do we jump on this opportunity now?" Krauskopf said "So, the direction with the timeline was accelerated, to be honest."
That meant getting a coach who could make the Fever a surefire top-five team.
"That doesn't take away from anything that Christie did and what that coaching staff did; to use her word, she left it better than she found it. But we're looking forward, and this is about the next phase in the next era of what we're building here," Krauskopf said. "So once I got word that Stephanie White could potentially be available ... it was like fortuitous or something that just, I couldn't even believe the timing of the opportunity to talk with her."
Krauskopf sees players like Boston, Clark and Lexie Hull, all of whom were at the press conference Monday, as "high IQ" players. Both she and White mentioned high IQ players several times throughout the press conference. The organization also believes White is the right "high IQ" coach to mold this team into contenders.
"And I know Stephanie, I know how she is as a coach, and I saw what she did when she was here, the two years that she coached and and just the chance to have her come back and take over," Krauskopf said. "There's a lot of similarities. And the way I see her play the game, the way she coaches the game, the way she communicates. And what we have, we have very highly intellectual players. Leah, Boston is one of the sharpest, highly, high IQ players I've ever seen. Caitlin is as well. Lexi, you know, we've just got a really, really high IQ group of players, and I look forward to how Stephanie can communicate with them and work with them and put them in a position to be successful."
Defining the Stephanie White era
To that end, we got a glimpse into what White will bring to Indiana to turn the tide.
Knowing the Fever were an exciting team to watch, especially late last season, White wants to empower her roster to be even more creative. The promise of Caitlin Clark logo 3s brought in record attendance and White will lean into that.
"I'm a forward-thinking, outside-the-box kind of coach," White said. "I like to challenge them on a number of levels. They are a high IQ team, so also giving them the freedom to make plays ... you got to give them the freedom, the confidence to believe in their abilities to make those plays, but also a little bit of the structure to help them see the different ways that you can attack."
This will be especially key for Clark and Kelsey Mitchell in the backcourt. Once the duo got in rhythm, they were among the most, if not the most efficient guard combination in the league. Clark can easliy be the best point guard in the league to start next season.
The structure in the White era will undoubtedly come on the defensive side. White led the Sun to the highest defensive rating in the league last season, while the Fever were ranked 11th.
"We've got to make sure on the days that shots aren't falling, that we're able to position ourselves to win ball games. And you know, I was never a player who played defense. Dunn can attest to that," White joked and Dunn, who was in the audience, confirmed.
"But [defense] is a big part of of how I coach, and it's important piece of us positioning ourselves to win ball games. And so, we'll, we'll attack that as well, and we'll continue to get better on on that end of the floor. But more than anything, we want to continue to be exactly what they are a fun, fast paced, up tempo style of play."
That includes finding complimentary pieces to run the court with Boston, Clark, Hull and anyone else who returns to the Fever. While Mitchell would likely be a welcomed addition to the future plans of the Fever, the seven-year veteran will be an unrestricted free agent in 2025. She has seen promising changes fall flat for the Fever, so no telling if she'd rather take her talents elsewhere, even despite the coaching changes.
Erica Wheeler will also be a UFA, and reserve center Temi Fagbenle will be a restricted free agent. Otherwise, the Fever can retain everyone else from the 2024 roster, assuming they are not selected in the expansion Draft come next month. The Fever can protect six players and will assuredly block Golden State from selecting Clark, Boston and Mitchell. NaLyssa Smith would likely be protected, though her social media activity since the Fever were eliminated suggests she wants out of Indiana.
However, if these assets aren't exactly what the Fever have in mind, Kraukopf isn't afraid to be proactive. After all, she's made Expansion Draft deals before.
How to build championship culture
Part of leaning into a high IQ team is to attract like minds. The Fever did so when Catchings was their star. Legendary players like Catchings, Katie Douglas and Tammy Sutton-Brown helped anchor a Fever team with up-and-comers Erin Phillips, Karima Christmas and Shavonte Zellous.
The Fever team hung its hat on hard-nose defense and team play. To return to that era with Clark and Boston as the focal points, Indiana expects to use the offseason to find the right complimentary pieces.
"I'm already thinking about what [who] we need to be on the phone with because our next opportunity is the Expansion Draft and and how that looks, and what's around that ... that's what I love doing," Krauskopf said.
That is how she acquired White from the Miami Sol in the 2000 Expansion Draft.
Now, having brought 2023 WNBA Coach of the Year Stephanie White back to Indiana, the organization feels they can recruit top players to fit into what they expect will be a winning culture. Where Sides survived a push for the playoffs, the expectation is White can lead one as she did the past two seasons in Connecticut. This will go far with free agents who want to play alongside young talent like Clark and Boston while also playing for an accomplished coach.
"These two are the best. And I think that there's so many things that they do well right now ... but there's so much room for growth," White said.
And for White, the sky is the limit for the Clark-Boston duo.
"When you think about the great point guards and post players that our game, not just our league, but our game has seen, they are going to go down in history as the greatest," White said of Clark and Boston. "I'm excited about the opportunity to work with them. I'm excited about the opportunity that we have to build from those starting points and build out and for the longevity that those two could have in Indiana, in Indianapolis, and hanging banners in this building."
However, White knows the road to a title is through the bench.
"It's a long season -- next season, 44 games. We want to get a quality rotation. We want to put the best players who play well together on the floor in a consistent rotation," White said. "And we got to play the long game. Certainly, you want to win every game and you want to compete every game, but playing the long game, positioning yourselves for the playoffs, positioning yourselves to win playoff series, is important."
