The Indiana Fever ended up having a 2025 season that can only be described as both impossible to fathom and still somehow wildly successful. Despite having five players who went down with season-ending injuries, the team managed to make it to the second round of WNBA playoffs, and very nearly thwarted the Las Vegas Aces. And though Caitlin Clark gets the lion's share of attention from fans, this season also perfectly illustrated exactly how important veteran Kelsey Mitchell is to the team.
Mitchell was a hot topic during Coach Stephanie White's interview on the "Fever Insider LIVE" podcast this week. White made a point of emphasizing Mitchell's outsized importance to the team, and noted that she is a franchise player the Fever hopes to build around.
White also noted that Mitchell was the team's "number one priority" during 2025 free agency, and she will again be the franchise's number one priority in 2026. White also credited Mitchell with resurrecting the Fever, something that was in motion before Clark was drafted.
"I said this last year, Kelsey deserves to go through this stage of her Indiana Fever career. She's been through sort of the worst of the worst, for lack of a better term, in and out of the building; growing pains with getting the organization back," White explained. "You don't get back-to-back number one picks unless you've been at the bottom for a while, right? And she showed up like a pro every day and she just continues to work and continues to grow. She carried the franchise and she carries the teams in different ways, and she deserves the opportunity to do that."
White also reflected on Mitchell's seemingly Herculean ability to continue to stare down loss after loss throughout the season and to keep improving her own game. "You lose everybody that we lost, and Kelsey Mitchell just kept getting better and better and better as the year progressed," she said. "And I think that while it's hard to believe she's eight years or whatever in this league, that there's still so much in her."
White's comments about Mitchell echo what GM Amber Cox said following the end of the Fever's season. The Fever were sitting at the bottom of the WNBA when Mitchell joined the team 8 years ago, a reality that no one has been quick to forget as the team has battled their way through the league rankings.
As Cox told reporters in her exit interview, "The priority will be Kelsey Mitchell, and making sure she remains in a Fever jersey." That statement is powerful, especially as Mitchell will undoubtedly be a target of many teams in the coming weeks and months. The fact that the Fever is loudly making it clear the team plans to aggressively pursue retaining their star is a positive sign for Fever fans, and could go a long way toward making sure Mitchell runs it back at least one more season with the team.