In a world where coaching a rising basketball star is supposed to be a ticket to success, Christie Sides apparently missed the memo. The Indiana Fever, after making their first playoff appearance since forever (okay, 2016), decided to part ways with Sides despite her solid coaching performance. Enter Sheryl Swoopes, WNBA royalty, who’s here to remind everyone that handling “Caitlin mania” was no small feat. Spoiler: She’s not wrong.
Swoopes, a four-time WNBA champion and basketball icon, took to her “Levels To This” podcast to spill the tea on Sides’ handling of Indiana’s darling, Caitlin Clark. According to Swoopes, Sides deserves all the praise for surviving the media frenzy that swarmed around the former Iowa star. And to be fair, the hype was real—Clark was drafted No. 1, immediately slapped with the savior label, and expected to drag the Fever kicking and screaming into the playoffs. No pressure, right?
For those keeping score, Clark delivered. She led Indiana to an impressive 20-20 record and their first playoff run since people still thought the iPhone 7 was cool. Yet, here we are, with Sides out of a job and Stephanie White stepping in to “take things to the next level.” The next level of what exactly? That remains to be seen.
Sheryl Swoopes’ Take: A Reality Check
Swoopes wasn’t holding back in her assessment of Sides’ stint as head coach. Speaking candidly with co-host Terrika Foster-Brasby, she praised Sides for doing everything short of performing miracles.
“That’s a lot to take on,” Swoopes said. “And the expectations of, ‘Well, you got Caitlin as the number one pick,’ there were people who were saying, ‘[Indiana] should win the championship.’ Now, y’all, be realistic. I was realistic. I was very realistic.”
Ah, realism. A rare commodity in professional sports where fans expect every rookie sensation to be the next LeBron by week three.
Swoopes added, “I think Christie did as good of a job as she could have. Managing all the craziness, all of the Caitlin mania, all of the hype, all of the media. It was just so much that came with that.”
Translation: Christie Sides basically babysat a tornado disguised as a rookie phenom. Between balancing Clark’s rocketing fame, coaching an evolving roster, and handling every reporter on Earth asking if Clark was the second coming of Diana Taurasi, Sides probably needed a vacation, not a pink slip.
Coaching Swap: Fever Brings In Stephanie White
Despite the success—or at least what should have been considered success—the Fever decided to hit the reset button once again. Enter Stephanie White, a former Connecticut Sun coach, because apparently Indiana believes there’s no such thing as too much change.
Sides, for her part, is keeping it classy. After getting the news that her time with the Fever was over, she hit social media with a cryptic yet painfully polite post on X (formerly known as Twitter): “Leave it better than you found it.”
Not exactly the type of post that screams rage quit, but we can all read between the lines.
The Fever’s Up-and-Down Rollercoaster
Let’s be real: the Fever were a mess before Sides arrived in 2023. They were coming off a fantastic 5-31 season, courtesy of Carlos Knox, who probably has a dartboard with Caitlin Clark’s face on it by now. Sides, meanwhile, took that disaster, polished it up, and turned it into a respectable 13-27 the following season, then upped the ante with a 20-20 record this year.
And now, after all that progress, Sides is gone? Oh, Indiana. At this rate, Clark might have to pull double duty as a player-coach just to keep things moving.
Will Stephanie White pick up where Sides left off? Or will Caitlin Clark have to pull even more rabbits out of her hat to keep Fever fans from rioting? Only time—and maybe a few more podcast episodes from Sheryl Swoopes—will tell.
In the meantime, let’s all hope Caitlin Clark packed some extra magic dust because she’s going to need it.
