Fever bolster roster to surround Clark with talent

INDIANAPOLIS — Natasha Howard signed with the Indiana Fever to make one more title run.

She’s hoping it happens this season.

The two-time WNBA All-Star and the league’s 2019 Defensive Player of the Year is the face of an offseason overhaul for the Fever. Teaming with superstar Caitlin Clark, the veteran forward could help turn one of the league’s youngest and most promising franchises into a championship contender.

“We have the talent, and we have the people, too,” Howard said during her reintroduction to Indy, where her pro career began in 2014. “I’m happy to be part of this and also from a leadership standpoint to show the young people what it takes to win a championship.”

Howard knows what’s required after winning one title with the Minnesota Lynx and two with the Seattle Storm during an 11-year career.

And that’s one reason Fever president of business and basketball operations Kelly Krauskopf and new general manager Amber Cox decided to target Howard. Cox was hired in October after spending three seasons in the Dallas Wings’ front office. Howard spent the last two seasons with Dallas.

Howard joins a roster with three other All-Stars — Clark, shooting guard Kelsey Mitchell and forward Aliyah Boston. Clark and Boston are the league’s most recent rookies of the year, and the Fever gave Mitchell a new contract last week to keep her off the free-agent market.

There are plenty of changes, too.

Former Fever star Stephanie White is returning to Indy for her second stint as head coach after being selected the league’s 2023 Coach of the Year with Connecticut. She was an assistant with the Fever when the 6-foot-2 Howard last played in Indy.

Krauskopf expects Howard to add as much value off the court as on it.

“The young group we’re bringing back, they asked us to protect our locker room, to protect the culture we got started,” Krauskopf said. “So knowing Natasha as a young player and then watching how when you go to other teams and you help teams win championships, that’s really something special and everywhere she’s gone, she’s won. She’s a winner.”

That’s a huge benefit for a team that opened last season in the midst of seven-year playoff drought and with back-to-back No. 1 overall picks.

Everything changed when the Fever drafted Clark, a generational player who drew huge television ratings and crowds everywhere she went during a historic rookie season. Clark broke the league’s single-season records for assists and 3-pointers by a rookie while becoming the first rookie in WNBA history to post a triple-double. She was honored as The Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year.

“She’s worked on her shooting, she can dictate the floor as a point guard and she’s an amazing passer,” Howard said, referring to Clark. “So I’m just really excited to be part of this team and to catch her passes.”

With a full offseason to work out with teammates while getting acclimated to a new coach, Clark faces soaring expectations in 2025.

It’s all part of the plan Krauskopf, Cox and White started piecing together late last fall. Keeping Mitchell and adding Howard were Indiana’s top priorities — but not the only ones, as the past week has revealed.

Shortly after the Howard deal went public, Indiana received sharpshooting guard Sophie Cunningham from Phoenix as part of a four-team deal with starting forward NaLyssa Thomas going to Dallas.

Then, on Sunday, Indiana signed another veteran in 37-year-old DaWanna Bonner, a two-time WNBA champ and six-time All-Star who played for White in Connecticut.

The combination gives the Fever something they lacked when they were eliminated in the playoffs last year in the first round — championship experience.

“There’s no substitute for experience,” White said. “We sat here in November and we talked about that, and we’ve got players and are getting players through free agency that have experience. We’re not going to sacrifice the culture we have, and we’re going to continue to build because that’s consistency and when you have consistency you have an opportunity to win multiple championships, right?”

Indiana has made the WNBA finals three times, most recently in 2015, and won its only title in 2012. Howard is here to try to change that.

“It’s really exciting to be playing with Boston, Clark and Mitchell, players that I also say stuff to on the court against them,” Howard said. “So I’m happy to be playing with them and not against them.”