New Indiana Fever head coach Stephanie White will pilot the Caitlin Clark ship in 2025, tasked with getting the most out of an emerging team that also includes Aliyah Boston, a two-time WNBA All-Star.
By hiring White in an offseason full of consistent leadership moves, the Fever showed their willingness to act boldly 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 a time when there is more attention 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 dozen organizations will have a new voice to guide their locker rooms. That’s a notable jump compared to last season, when only two coaching changes were made.
“People are taking it more seriously,” peerless president Alex Bazzell, who is married to Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier, said in an interview. “They treat it like a professional sports league. These owners want to win and they want the best coaches and the best resources. These are rich people who want to compete and be at the top.”
In the highly competitive professional sports landscape, it is not uncommon for coaches to be fired after or even in the middle of bad seasons. But a shift is happening for the 27-year-old WNBA amid growing pains and renewed expectations. There are many factors that have led to the busiest offseason leadership carousel in recent memory, including changes at the general manager position in Indiana, Washington, Dallas and Las Vegas (not to mention a whole new set of faces arriving at the Golden State Valkyries).
All five teams that were picked in the top seven of last year’s WNBA draft have recently made changes at the head coaching 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. “With the influx of dollars from the media, teams also want to improve the quality of the coach for their organization. … We are in uncharted waters.”
The collective bargaining agreement may be the most important catalyst, as it expires after the 2025 season. The players’ union has decided to abandon the current deal. More than 60 players, including Kelsey Plum of the Las Vegas Aces and two-time Fever All-Star Kelsey Mitchell, are in free agency.
Many agents discouraged veterans from signing long-term contracts because they knew a new CBA could bring in more money after a banner year highlighted by unprecedented growth in brand partnerships, media deals and franchise valuations.
The many layoffs at the coach and general manager positions represent the evolution of the league and the added responsibility that team owners expect. The change in thinking comes with the arrival of three expansion franchises (Toronto, Golden State, Portland) over the next two years. It is expected that the new owners will put more pressure on the less wealthy and frugal owners to invest in infrastructure and schedule payroll, especially now that the hard salary cap may be softened by the new CBA deal.
The next deal is expected to provide more flexibility to general managers and player personnel decision-makers, which has accelerated changes to the front office.
“With the new CBA taking effect in 2026, more strategy and nuance will be required to build and manage WNBA rosters,” agent and Disrupt The Game founder Allison Galer said in an interview. “So teams taking steps to ensure they have the right staff in the front office as general managers and on the field as head coaches is paramount now more than ever.”
The turnover is indicative of a recruitment process already underway as the world’s top players enter the market over the next two years. WNBA All-Stars Plum and Alyssa Thomas of the Connecticut Sun are among the standouts in this free agency class. Their team choices are determined not only by salary, but also by the best coaching, front office vision and resource offering.
This is why the arms race in the facilities 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, which plans to build a $38 million performance center, announced last week that they have hired former Aces assistant Tyler Marsh to replace ex-head coach Teresa Weatherspoon (who was fired after just 11 months).
“It’s a business now,” Carol Stiff, a former ESPN board member and board member of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, said in an interview. “There is money to be made, so teams have to win now. There is responsibility.”
The leadership changes also come with lottery teams preparing to pick from a star-studded 2025 draft class that will include UConn stars Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd. While perhaps without the same firepower as the class of 2024 highlighted by Clark and Reese, last season was a proof of concept for how dynamic and marketable rookie stars can quickly change the trajectory of a team’s future, both on and off the field .
Marsh, who was an assistant coach with the Indiana Pacers before taking a similar job with the Aces, is tasked with building rebounding leader Angel Reese and former South Carolina star Kamilla Cardoso.
The Sky’s arrangement represents what could become a trend in which former NBA assistants are paid top dollar to stay or move to the W. More importantly, the league’s $2.2 billion, 11-year media rights deal is expected to translate into more money for the coaching staff. . Phoenix and Las Vegas were the only teams to pay their coach at least $1 million, 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 needs to reach the next level, both on the agency side and on the team side, both business and basketball,” Galer added. “Progress comes at a price, and we see exponential growth on the business side being matched by significant changes on the basketball side.”
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