White offers gravitas for Clark and Boston

The Fever hired Stephanie White not only to win championships with Caitlin Clark and Aliyah Boston, but to maximize the greatness of the team's both players.

We all know why the Indiana Fever initially targeted Stephanie White as the head coach.

We all know why White wanted to coach the Fever after a successful run with the Connecticut Sun.

As cute as it sounded about White wanting to return home, this was not even it.

Caitlin Clark and Aliyah Boston serve as factors to why the Fever and White renew their marriage.

White was introduced as the new Fever head coach on Monday afternoon at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, with Clark and Boston in attendance.

Sure, the Fever expressed happiness about reuniting with their head coach who helped them win their first WNBA championship as an assistant coach in 2012 and then led them to the WNBA Finals in 2015 as the head coach.

Sure, White waxed poetic about her first stint with the Fever.

But once the team and White had the mushy stuff out of the way in the press conference, they addressed the point on why they joined forces. It was about maximizing the greatness of Clark and Boston and winning championships with the Fever stars.

In other words, it was a business move for the Fever and White that should benefit each other.

Indiana Fever President of Basketball and Business Operations Kelly Krauskopf and CEO and General Manager Amber Cox targeted White since they know she can make Clark and Boston champions.

The Fever stars have the talent to be Hall of Famers. They are likely locks to be there unless something catastrophic happens healthwise for either or both of them.

But there’s so much work for them to be champions and achieve greatness. White knows what it takes to make them great. With all due respect to Christie Sides, her inexperience wasn’t going to serve Clark and Boston well in being champions in a sense they likely wouldn’t listen to her. This is why the Fever wanted to make a coaching change.

You can bet they will listen to White’s every word of wisdom out there. She is a detail-oriented coach who will demand players to play defense and execute the little things such as boxing out and getting loose balls.

White will push Clark and Boston to great heights. There’s no doubt both will put in the offseason work that will have them ready to play from the start.

If there’s a weakness in Clark’s game, it’s her defense. It has to be much better. Yes, she is young, but this is where White’s influence matters now. The new Fever head coach will demand Clark to work on her game when it comes to defense. White can be more of an effective teacher than Sides. Most times, players listen based on the delivery of the message. White’s intellectual approach can get the fiery Clark to listen.

Clark will also have to control her emotions. She can be frustrated easily if things don’t go her way. This is where White needs to be the coaching whisperer.

White played as a shooting guard, so she offers an experience for Clark to lean on, especially when opponents play physically on her.

The Fever coach will also have an impact on Boston. She needs to get more toughness in her forward when it comes to fighting for rebounds and banging bodies. She figures to have a plan for that.

Here’s the one thing White must do: make sure Clark and Boston click from the start. It was a struggle for a while this season, and understandably so since both were new to each other and both wanted to defer to each other. They picked it up in the post-Olympic break, but this is still a work in progress.

White compared the Boston/Clark duo to Karl Malone and John Stockton. She did not just say it as a compliment. She offered a hint on how the offense would be running. She wants plenty of pick-and-roll from her two stars this season. She also figures to provide run-and-gun offense featuring both players.

White knows offense. If there is a coach who can sell what she is teaching, it is she, and that’s why Clark and Boston will listen.

White’s ability to win a championship will serve her stars well, too.

White knows she can win a championship with them, so she wants to go home. This is a chance for her to be in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame if she wins plenty of championships. She knows great players like Boston and Clark are hard to find, which is why she wanted to coach the Fever badly.

So yes, both needed each other.

Clark and Boston should benefit from this reunion of Fever and White the most.