In the 2024 season’s exit interview, Aliyah Boston barely held her words when she called out the Indiana Fever fans for their comments while she and her team struggled at the start of the season. Two years later, Kelsey Mitchell expressed a similar frustration during her 2026 exit interview. The Fever’s leading scorer’s comments have set in motion yet another fresh conversation about Indiana’s fanbase. 

One of the big names jumping into the conversation was former ESPN host Linda Cohn, who questioned Mitchell’s identification of fans belonging to the Fever fanbase.  The Fever star told reporters that she had received “hate comments” from the Fever fans when she played badly, but Cohn checked Mitchell’s claim with the phenomenon at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

“People online who compare every Fever player to Caitlin or blame her teammates every time something goes wrong. I’ve heard it. I’ve seen it. And that has to be exhausting,” Cohn said on her YouTube channel. “But if we’re going to use what Kelsey Mitchell receives in her DMs as another piece of evidence against Fever fans, well then I need more evidence. Show me the connection. Because the Fever fans I’m watching inside that arena, they’re not booing Kelsey Mitchell. They’re chanting MVP for her.”

She has had a career year and led her team in scoring. Throughout the season, she received MVP chants on multiple occasions during games, like one against the Minnesota Lynx last month. Even during the exit interview, she told reporters that it was a “humbling” experience to hear MVP chants from the Fever fans. 

Mitchell’s comments, however, seemed at odds with Fever GM Amber Cox’s comments. During the exit interview, Cox read the team’s statement in support of the Fever fanbase, defending them in light of controversy that followed after A’ja Wilson’s altercation during Game 2 of the first-round series. 

Cohn said that she believed Mitchell when the Fever star claimed that she received hateful DMs. However, the analyst questioned whether she could absolutely confirm those were Fever fans. 

“Do we have any information? Do we know where they live? They may not live in Indiana…Do we even know that they’re Indiana Fever fans? Because somewhere along the way, anonymous people on social media have become evidence against an entire fan base,” Cohn added. 

There is certainly no way of saying if people sending DMs are Indiana fans. However, it is hard to deny Mitchell’s claims either, especially when Boston’s 2024 exit interview is juxtaposed with Mitchell’s. 

Part of what was happening behind the scenes, and the hate comments that Mitchell had received, she admitted, came with being teammates with a big star like Caitlin Clark.

“Playing with (Clark) and having the eyes that she’s got (on her), we get a lot of flak just from being on her team. I think that comes with a lot, too. And I just think that people have to give us grace,” Mitchell said. 

Clark’s induction in the WNBA brought a lot of attention. The league and, in consequence, the Indiana Fever were flooded with fans, even non-Indiana residents who had followed Clark’s college journey for years. For Cohn, playing alongside the biggest star in women’s sports had positives too, and Mitchell herself was enjoying some of those.

“But let us acknowledge this. The other side of this, playing alongside Caitlin Clark, has also brought an extraordinary amount of attention to Kelsey Mitchell and everybody else, for that matter, on this Fever team…More people are watching Kelsey Mitchell play basketball than ever before in her career,” Cohn said. 

Mitchell is a free agent this offseason. While she praised the Fever teammates and the front office during the interview, her comments also reflect that she doesn’t feel appreciated by the Fever fans. She also said that she would be “selfish” in making her decision.