It’s almost playoff season in the WNBA, and the Indiana Fever are stumbling to the finish line. With Caitlin Clark sidelined by injury, the team has struggled to find consistency under head coach Stephanie White. Some analysts, including Jason Whitlock, believe White should be on the hot seat and that Clark should be the one pulling the trigger.
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White, a former WNBA player for the Fever, has been a head coach since 2015. She led them to the WNBA Finals in her first season, where the Minnesota Lynx ended their pursuit of the crown, but she immediately showed she was there to be taken seriously. White then moved to the college ranks in 2016, spending five years at Vanderbilt before returning to the W to coach the Connecticut Sun, who made back-to-back runs to the semifinals.
The Fever rehired White in 2025, and expectations were high. So far, though, it’s been a mixed bag. It’s not just that Clark has been inconsistent with injuries. Overall, Indiana has looked lackluster and far from being a team capable of making a deep playoff run. Whitlock, as such, has seen enough.
“If Caitlin Clark reaches the end of this season and wants a new coach, they better give it to her,” Whitlock said on his show Fearless. It would be the second coach Clark has seen fired in her young career. That’s why Whitlock’s co-hosts warned that if White were to lose her job, Clark might be labeled a ‘coach-killer.’ However, Whitlock reminded them that perhaps the greatest NBA player of all time was once labeled the same thing.
“I remember a coach killer, his name was Michael Jordan. And he killed a bunch of coaches before he ever got to Phil Jackson. We’ve seen this before,” Whitlock pointed out.
That’s why the analyst believes that if things still aren’t working when Clark returns, White needs to be held responsible. “If it doesn’t work when she comes back, that’s when we should really be blaming Stephanie White,” he added, before pointing out that the Fever haven’t figured out how to use Clark and Kelsey Mitchell together.
Mitchell, an eighth-year player out of Ohio State, has shouldered the scoring load with Clark out. Whitlock considers her one of the best bucket-getters in the league. Yet, when the two share the floor, he sees them struggle alongside each other.
Whitlock then argued that White might not know how to use Clark and Mitchell together because they aren’t the type of players she prefers. “Stephanie White doesn’t see it as a blessing. She wants an Odyssey Sims and Aari McDonald out there controlling the game. People she has leverage over and can control.”
Caitlin Clark appeared to be in pain after this play late in the fourth quarter.
Clark returned to play last week after missing 5 games with a groin injury. pic.twitter.com/y78M3mDeCf
— espnW (@espnW) July 16, 2025
In all honesty, it could be argued that Whitlock was a bit too harsh with his comments. McDonald and Sims have hardly seen the court this season, and the only times they’ve been heavily relied upon are when circumstances demanded it. McDonald in particular has stepped up recently, handling the ball well in Clark’s absence.
At the end of the day, the Fever have struggled for a variety of reasons. Part of it comes down to a new coach and players adjusting to a system, but a lot of it also stems from untimely injuries. There’s no need to push for White to be fired right now, as she doesn’t appear to be the key problem.
The Fever and Clark are still 19-17 and very much in the playoff hunt. Every game from here on out is massive, but sitting in the 6 seed, they’ve done about as well as they could have considering all the injuries. Whitlock, perhaps, needs to lay off.
