Key Takeaways
- Dave Portnoy is calling for the Indiana Fever to fire head coach Stephanie White after she fiercely defended her players and told critics to “go to hell” when pressed about her initial response to DiJonai Carrington’s hard foul on Sophie Cunningham.
- Portnoy blasted White for saying she hadn’t clearly seen the play and for framing the backlash as part of broader “hate” and “fear-mongering,” arguing instead that she should have simply admitted she was wrong and backed Cunningham and Fever fans unequivocally.
- The rant is the latest in Portnoy’s escalating campaign around Caitlin Clark and the Fever, which has included telling Clark to start her own league and ripping Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and WNBA leadership for what he sees as failing the team and its star.
Dave Portnoy wants Stephanie White out of Indiana, and the Fever coach’s fiery attempt to shut down her critics only gave him more ammunition.
The Barstool Sports founder doubled down on his demand that the Indiana Fever fire White after she addressed criticism over her initial reaction to DiJonai Carrington’s hard foul on Sophie Cunningham. White said she hadn't seen the play clearly before her postgame press conference, defended her loyalty to her players and told anyone questioning it they could “go to hell.” Portnoy’s response: That explanation wasn’t good enough.
“Like, what do you mean you didn’t see it?” he said. “You have the best seat in the house. You don’t watch it on the monitor?”
He argued White should have simply acknowledged getting her initial assessment wrong: “I think she should have just said, ‘I screwed up. I shouldn’t have defended Carrington. I should have just defended Sophie and had my team’s back.’”
White’s comments came before Indiana’s game against the New York Liberty, after days of criticism over the Cunningham play. She said she originally believed officials handled it correctly because she went directly to her press conference without seeing repeated replays. Once she did, her assessment changed. “Was it egregious? Absolutely,” White said.
But White also made clear she saw the controversy as part of something bigger than one foul. “The hate, the fear-mongering, the divisiveness, the stuff that’s trying to hijack our league will not win,” she said. “We are united. We are connected. We will not be divided.”
She added that she rides with her players “10 toes down all the time” before closing with: “Everybody else can go to hell.”
That broader defense is exactly where White lost Portnoy.
“Listen, I don’t care what you think of the league, Stephanie White,” he said. “The Fever fans and their players get attacked and blamed for anything. If you burn your mouth on your food, it’s the Fever’s fault. So, we want a coach who has our players and our teams and our fans back 100% of the time.”
It’s the latest front in Portnoy’s increasingly aggressive campaign around Indiana. Just days earlier, after Caitlin Clark was initially assessed her eighth technical foul of the season, which the WNBA later rescinded, he told Clark to leave the WNBA altogether.
“Hey @CaitlinClark22 just go start your own league already,” Portnoy wrote, while directing another shot at commissioner Cathy Engelbert.
And this isn’t his first time arguing that Clark and the Fever are being failed by the league around them. Portnoy previously blasted Kareem Abdul-Jabbar after the NBA legend questioned labeling Clark the “face of the WNBA,” calling Abdul-Jabbar’s argument “steeped in jealousy and stupidity.”
White, meanwhile, has spent much of the season defending her players while also pushing back against the circus surrounding them. After Clark took what White called “two cheap shots” against Phoenix earlier this season, the coach tore into officiating and said Clark was “not called the same way as everybody else is called.”
