The Fever are the latest WNBA team with a coaching vacancy. But don’t expect it to stay vacant for long.
On Sunday morning, the Fever announced the firing of coach Christie Sides after two seasons in which she posted a 33-47 record. This year, with the help of Rookie of the Year Caitlin Clark, Sides led the Fever to the postseason for the first time since 2016.
Firing Sides paves the way for Stephanie White’s return to Indiana. While nothing has been made official, multiple sources expect White, who’s still under contract with the Sun, to be the Fever’s next coach.
“Leave it better than you found it,” Sides posted on X after the news of her firing.
In the Fever’s release announcing the decision to “part ways” with Sides, new president Kelly Krauskopf shared the franchise’s gratitude for Sides before expressing the need to “remain bold and assertive in the pursuit of our goals.”
Nothing is bolder and more assertive for a franchise with a coach still employed than courting one of the best in the league while she’s still under contract.
White has been in discussions with teams since the season ended. She narrowed her list of potential landing spots to the Sky and Fever. Returning to the Sun — with whom she’s under contract through 2025 — wasn’t ruled out.
But the Fever have always appeared to be the front-runner.
Indiana can offer White proximity to family. The Fever job also comes with an opportunity to coach Clark, Aliyah Boston and potentially Kelsey Mitchell if she opts to re-sign with the franchise in free agency.
White was on the Fever’s inaugural roster in 2000, playing four seasons for her home-state franchise. After getting her coaching start in the WNBA as an assistant with the Sky from 2007-2010, White returned to the Fever in 2011 to join Lin Dunn’s bench.
She remained an assistant with the Fever until 2014 — including their championship season in 2012 — before being promoted to head coach in 2015. White led the Fever to the Finals In 2015 before losing in Game 5 to the Lynx.
In 2016 — the last of White’s first stint as the Fever’s coach — the Fever lost in the first round to the Mercury.
White’s impending return to Indiana forces the Sky back to the drawing board. Sky general manager Jeff Pagliocca has already had preliminary conversations with multiple candidates, including former Sparks coach Curt Miller and former Wings coach Latricia Trammell.
At this point, however, those conversations have not progressed past an exploratory stage.
The biggest question Pagliocca will have to answer now is what direction he wants to lead the team. Several assistant coaches, including the Aces’ Tyler Marsh and Lynx Katie Smith, warrant consideration. The Mercury’s Kristi Toliver and Sun’s Briann January are two other assistants expected to be pursued. However, with these candidates comes a similar risk they took on last season when they hired Teresa Weatherspoon, who had no head coaching experience in the WNBA.
Pagliocca has not offered any timeline for when he’d like to have a coach in place. The expectation is that they would have someone before the expansion draft slated for Dec. 6.