For the second consecutive season, Kelsey Mitchell and the Indiana Fever were eliminated from the playoffs after losing a winner-take-all first-round game to the Las Vegas Aces. And once again, Mitchell will be a free agent and have to decide whether she wants to return to the only franchise she's ever known. Mitchell, after signing a one-year deal to return to Indiana last offseason, had the best scoring season we've ever seen from a guard.
She averaged 24.7 points, the fifth-highest single-season scoring average in WNBA history, scoring a league-record 1,086 total points while leading the league in 3-point percentage (45%). Her 64.5% true shooting was 8.4% above league average and the third-highest ever by a 20-point scorer. Despite Mitchell posting those historic numbers while forming an elite backcourt with Caitlin Clark, the Fever endured another early playoff exit and now enter a pivotal offseason.
Fever general manager Amber Cox said after the season that re-signing Mitchell will be a "major priority." Clark, meanwhile, said at her exit interview on Thursday that "there's nobody I would want to share the backcourt with other than" Mitchell, and that the organization will "recruit her as hard as we can" because "we need her, we love her." The Fever paid Mitchell, 30, the supermax this season and have the cap space to re-sign her, but they'll face plenty of competition from the rest of the league. Mitchell, who said in her exit interview that she plans to be "selfish" during her free agency process, appears open to playing elsewhere after spending the first nine seasons of her career with Indiana, the team that drafted her at No. 2 overall in the 2018 WNBA Draft. "I have to be selfish," Mitchell said.
"I think that's where I am in my career ... what I probably need and what's probably best for me. So I have to be selfish in that room. "But I think, ultimately, being on the Fever and being a part of an organization that does come with a lot of ups and downs, what factors in and what is important for me is, obviously, having a good chemistry on and off the floor.
I've only been with one team my entire career, so it's all kind of like figuring this out. It's hard, man." As the playoffs continue, let's take an early look at where Mitchell might wind up this offseason. We have to start with the Fever, the only team Mitchell has known since she came into the league in 2018.
Mitchell went through some rough years in Indiana; the Fever won six or fewer games in four of her first six seasons, and she didn't play in the playoffs until 2024. That had more to do with the lack of talent around her than anything Mitchell was doing wrong. And the arrival of Clark and Aliyah Boston has helped Mitchell become one of the league's best guards.
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