“MVP! MVP!” A 16,000-strong Gainbridge Fieldhouse erupted in chants literally every time Kelsey Mitchell visited the free-throw line in their last regular-season home game against the Minnesota Lynx. While the unparalleled support might hint at fanbase approval for their nine-year shooting guard, The Athletic contributor Sabreena Merchant recently questioned this stance.
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“Kelsey can talk about how wonderful it is that she is in a place where they chant MVP for her at the foul line,” Merchant said on the No Offseason podcast. “No other player on the Indiana Fever is getting those chants…But then she’s also dealing with all of this hate and targeted attacks in her DMs that she has to look at online. And that’s got to be really just difficult as a human to deal with.”
“It’s got to be really difficult when your GM Amber Cox is going out and saying the attacks on our fan base are not founded in reality. This is the reality that Kelsey Mitchell is dealing with, right? This hate is coming into her life, and I think that contrast between what she’s experiencing and what the organization is talking about kind of doesn’t bode super well for the Fever because you want to be on the same side as your players,” she added.
Mitchell, in her 2026 exit interview, has addressed the incredible pressure she faces as a player. Mitchell is also the primary backcourt partner for Caitlin Clark, who is touted as the face of the league and has become somewhat of a camera-magnet. Being a Fever player amplifies the strain for Mitchell, as the spotlight is consistently on her.
“I think we as players endure a lot that people don’t necessarily really understand about, like showing up every day to compete for fans that may or may not like you, is hard,” she said in her exit interview.
“If I showed y’all my DMs about the hate and all of the stuff that comes with being a professional athlete, but specifically being an Indiana Fever basketball player, it’s a lot that goes into it,” Mitchell also added.
Mitchell, alongside Clark, has been the primary scoring engine for the Fever through the postseason as well, averaging 20.3 points in the three-game series against the Aces. It was on the back of her 26 points (and Clark’s 27 points) that the Fever edged past the Aces in Game 2, before they were overwhelmed in Game 3 once again.
Even WNBA writer Candace Pedraza, who previously put up Clark’s name for MVP in August, switched to Camp Kelsey after the 30-year-old averaged 28.9 points per game in August. She scored efficiently from three at 53.4 percent and 55.6 percent from the field overall. But it just doesn’t seem to be enough for the fans.
Even Caitlin Clark has strongly condemned such negativity in the league.
“I’ve said up here and said before, the harassment, the hate, none of that is OK,” Clark said on Friday, July 2, after a practice session following Alyssa Thomas’ hard foul on her. “That goes for the opposing team we play, that goes for my teammates, that goes for my coaches. There should never be question of character. None of that is OK, and I don’t want anybody to ever experience that.”
While Clark’s comments were about WNBA fans in general, it definitely includes the Fever fanbase, who have been under the spotlight this season for some instances of unruly behavior.
When the Las Vegas Aces visited the Fever on August 6, 2026, Jackie Young was forced to stop the game to call out two disruptive Fever fans. More recently, during Game 2 of the Aces-Fever playoff series, A’ja Wilson was seen rushing to confront an unruly fan who was pointing and shouting at the Aces star after she made contact with Sophie Cunningham.
Despite these instances, Fever GM Amber Cox came to Fever fans’ defense in her exit interview. She noted that there hadn’t been a single instance of Fever fans officially breaking the Code of Conduct this season.
“The attacks on our fanbase have no basis in reality, and they need to stop, especially with members of the media,” Cox said.
There appears to be a clear discord between what Cox is claiming and the hate that Kelsey Mitchell is facing. And as Merchant says, that’s not a headspace you want your top scorer to be in. This becomes more relevant as Mitchell will enter free agency after this season, as her $1.4 million supermax contract comes to an end.
If the Fever want to retain their backcourt monster scoring duo, the online hate directed towards Fever players, especially Mitchell, will have to be addressed. Otherwise, the Fever front office may have to go shopping in the offseason.