The Fever Fired Amber Cox Hours After Kelly Krauskopf Stepped Down: What It Means for Caitlin Clark
The Indiana Fever won 28 games this season, a franchise record. They had the highest-scoring offense in WNBA history. By Friday evening, both of the executives who built that team were gone.
Pacers Sports and Entertainment announced Friday morning that Kelly Krauskopf is stepping down as president of basketball and business operations. Hours later, The Athletic’s Annie Costabile reported that general manager and chief operating officer Amber Cox had been fired. PS&E followed with its own release confirming Cox’s departure, effective immediately.
Two Very Different Exits
Krauskopf left on her own terms. She told the organization during the season that she would step down once it ended, and the team’s release carried a farewell from her and a tribute from owner Herb Simon.
“It has been an honor and a privilege to help build and steward the Indiana Fever with the support and trust of Herb Simon,” she said.
Simon’s response: “When we started the Fever, Kelly saw what this franchise could become. She built it, delivered a championship and came back when we needed her.”
That history is not an exaggeration. Krauskopf was the WNBA league office’s first director of basketball operations and the Fever’s original president and general manager starting with the 2000 inaugural season. Her first stint produced 13 playoff appearances, including a league-record 12 straight from 2005 to 2016, and the only title in franchise history in 2012. She then spent six seasons as a Pacers assistant general manager, the first woman in NBA history in that kind of role, before returning in 2024.
Cox got the standard two sentences. “Through her two seasons with the Fever, Amber has helped us navigate the seismic growth of both the WNBA and our franchise,” said PS&E president and CEO Mel Raines. “We’re grateful for her contributions and wish her the very best moving forward.” No reason was given for the firing. Cox went 52-36 in the regular season and 5-6 in the playoffs across two years.
Why It Happened Anyway
The record was never the problem. The ceiling was. Indiana finished 28-16, took the No. 6 seed for the third consecutive year, never earned home-court advantage, and got knocked out in the first round by Las Vegas, two games to one. A’ja Wilson closed it with 36 points and 10 rebounds in a 94-83 Game 3 on Oct. 1.
IndyStar’s Chloe Peterson laid out the roster case against Cox: the DeWanna Bonner signing in 2025, a $200,000 deal that produced nine games before Bonner left for personal reasons and was waived when no trade could be found, plus multiyear contracts under the new CBA handed to players who did not justify the size. ESPN’s reporting added that the 2026 additions of Monique Billings, Myisha Hines-Allen and Tyasha Harris did not work out, and that a record-setting offense masked real defensive problems.
In fairness to Cox, she held 2025 together through six season-ending injuries by signing Odyssey Sims, Aerial Powers and Shey Peddy, and she negotiated Aliyah Boston’s extension through 2029.
What This Means for Clark
Caitlin Clark was healthy and excellent, which removes the easiest excuse. She played 40 of 44 games, averaging 22.3 points, 8.3 assists and 4.0 rebounds, second in the league in assists and third in scoring. She scored a career-high 45 against Seattle in July and averaged 20.0 points and 9.7 assists in the playoffs.
She is now eligible to renegotiate under the new CBA’s EPIC clause, and she has not said whether she will sign. Kelsey Mitchell, the team’s leading scorer, and Sophie Cunningham are both unrestricted free agents. Those decisions now run through executives nobody has hired yet.
PS&E says it will conduct a national search for the next general manager. No candidates have been named, and no successor plan for Krauskopf’s role has been announced. Head coach Stephanie White is expected to stay, per ESPN and USA TODAY, though the team has not said so publicly, and new front offices tend to want their own coach.
Indiana is betting that a team good enough to set scoring records is being held back by the people who assembled it. Clark gets three months to find out whether that bet was right.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
