New Indiana Fever head coach Stephanie White will steer the Caitlin Clark ship in 2025, tasked with getting the most out of an up-and-coming team that also includes Aliyah Boston, a two-time WNBA All-Star.
By hiring White in an offseason full of consequential leadership moves, the Fever showed their willingness to act boldly in order to capitalize on Clark’s historic popularity. White, a Purdue legend and former Connecticut Sun coach, joined Indiana after the franchise fired Christie Sides despite Sides leading the club to its first playoff appearance since 2016.
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Across the WNBA, other franchises have acted with similar urgency, leading to rapid turnover at time there are more eyeballs than ever on women’s basketball.
Seven teams—Atlanta, Indiana, Los Angeles, Connecticut, Washington, Dallas and Chicago—parted ways with head coaches this offseason. More than half of the league’s 12 organizations will have a new voice to lead their locker rooms. That’s a noticeable jump compared to last offseason when only two coaching changes were made.
“People are taking it more seriously,” Unrivaled president Alex Bazzell, who is married to Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier, said in an interview. “They’re treating it like a professional sports league. These owners want to win and want the best coaches and the best resources. These are wealthy people who want to compete and be at the top.”
It’s not uncommon in the uber-competitive pro sports landscape for coaches to be fired after or even in the middle of poor seasons. But there’s a shift happening for the 27-year-old WNBA amid growing pains and newfound expectations. There are many factors that have led to the league’s busiest offseason leadership carousel in recent memory, including changes at the general manager position in Indiana, Washington, Dallas and Las Vegas (not to mention an entirely new set of faces arriving with the Golden State Valkyries).
All five teams that picked within the top seven in last year’s WNBA draft recently made changes at the head coach position.
“Losing teams have to find a way to win in an ever-evolving league,” former Connecticut Sun general manager Chris Sienko, who helped the Sun become the first profitable franchise in the WNBA, said in an interview. “Also, with the influx of dollars coming from media, teams are looking to enhance the quality of coach for their organization. … We’re in unchartered waters.”
The collective bargaining agreement is arguably the main catalyst, as it’s set to expire after the 2025 season. The players union decided to opt out of the current deal. More than 60 players, including Kelsey Plum of the Las Vegas Aces and two-time Fever All-Star Kelsey Mitchell, are hitting free agency.
Many agents steered veterans away from signing long-term contracts, knowing that a new CBA could bring more money after a banner year highlighted by unprecedented growth across brand partnerships, media deals and franchise valuations.
The slew of firings at the coach and general manager positions represents the league’s evolution and the added accountability team owners are expecting. The shift in thinking comes with three expansion franchises (Toronto, Golden State, Portland) coming on board over the next two years. The new owners are expected to put more pressure on less wealthy and frugal owners to invest in infrastructure and roster payroll, especially with the hard salary cap potentially softening with the new CBA agreement.
The next agreement is expected to provide more flexibility for general managers and player personnel decision-makers, which has accelerated front office changes.
“With the new CBA in place in 2026, there’s going to be more strategy and nuance required to build out and manage WNBA rosters,” said agent and founder of Disrupt The Game, Allison Galer, in an interview. “So teams making moves to ensure they have the right personnel, in the front office as GM and on the court as head coach, is now, more than ever, of the utmost importance.”
The turnover is indicative of a recruitment process that is already happening as the best players in the world are hitting the market over the next two years. WNBA All-Stars Plum and Alyssa Thomas of the Connecticut Sun are among the standouts headlining this free agency class. Their team choices will be decided on not only salary but the best coaching, front office vision and resource offerings.
This is why the facility arms race has been a topic of conversation. Teams like Phoenix and Las Vegas have invested in standalone facilities while others like the Sun have been criticized by their own players for their lack of infrastructure. The Sky, who are planning to build a $38 million performance center, announced last week that they hired former Aces assistant Tyler Marsh to replace ex-head coach Teresa Weatherspoon (who was canned after only 11 months on the job).
“It’s a business now,” said former ESPN executive and Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame board member Carol Stiff in an interview. “There’s money to be made, so teams need to win now. There’s accountability.”
The leadership changes are also coming with lottery teams preparing to select from a star-studded 2025 draft class which will include UConn stars Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd. While maybe without the same firepower as the 2024 class highlighted by Clark and Reese, this past season was a proof of concept about how dynamic and marketable rookie stars can swiftly change the trajectory of a team’s future both on and off the court.
Marsh, who was an assistant coach with the Indiana Pacers before taking a similar job with the Aces, is tasked with building around league rebound leader Angel Reese and former South Carolina star Kamilla Cardoso.
The Sky’s arrangement represents what could become a trend of former NBA assistants getting top dollar to remain or switch to the W. More importantly, the $2.2 billion, 11-year media rights deal for the league is expected to translate into more money for coaching staffs. Phoenix and Las Vegas were the only teams to pay their coach at least a million dollars, but this could change as salaries become more competitive and the talent pool grows as college and international coaches turn to the W.
“Everyone in the WNBA is having to level up, whether on the agency side or the team side, both business and basketball,” Galer added. “Progress comes at a price, and we’re seeing exponential growth on the business side come with significant change on the basketball side.”
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