In professional sports, teams spend countless hours studying their opponents, breaking down film to exploit every weakness. But for the Indiana Fever, their most formidable and damaging opponent may be the one they see in the mirror every day. A series of troubling events, both on and off the court, paints a picture of a team struggling with a profound crisis of chemistry and focus. The evidence suggests that the Fever are becoming a team at war with itself, where internal dysfunction is proving more threatening than any rival team’s strategy.

The most glaring piece of evidence comes not from a rumor, but from the cold, hard numbers of a recent game. It’s a statistical anomaly so stark it demands explanation. In that contest, guard Sophie Cunningham was a beacon of offensive efficiency, sinking an incredible 4 of her 5 three-point attempts. She was, by any measure, the team’s hot hand and their best chance to pull away. Yet, her teammates seemed to operate in a different reality. The rest of the Fever roster combined for a staggering 0-for-17 from beyond the arc.

A collective bad shooting night is common in basketball. What isn’t common is the allegation, supported by game flow analysis, that the team deliberately stopped passing Cunningham the ball. After the mid-third quarter, the player who couldn’t miss was effectively frozen out of the offense. Instead, the ball continued to find its way to players like Kelsey Mitchell, who was having a nightmare performance. Mitchell ended the night shooting a dismal 2-for-15 from the field, including 0-for-8 from three. To have a player shooting 80% from deep and another shooting 0% from the same spot, yet to have the latter dominate the ball and shot attempts, is not just poor strategy. It borders on athletic malpractice and points to a deeply fractured locker room. It raises the ugliest question in team sports: was this intentional?

This on-court chaos is symptomatic of a wider lack of discipline and focus, which manifested in a separate, off-court drama. While the team should have been concentrating on game plans, guard Aari McDonald found herself in a public feud with controversial media personality Jason Whitlock. Whitlock made a cheap, unprofessional comment about her hair, calling it a “crazy wig.”

To be clear, McDonald was right to defend herself. His comments were out of line, and her sharp retort—warning she might “go get Stephen A. Smith”—was a necessary pushback against a media figure scrutinizing a female athlete’s appearance. However, the incident itself is a symptom of the Fever’s current state. They have become a magnet for drama, easily drawn into public battles that suck energy and attention away from the primary goal of winning basketball games. A team with championship aspirations is typically defined by its singular focus and its ability to ignore external noise. The Fever, right now, seem to be amplifying it.

When you place these two exhibits side-by-side, the pattern becomes undeniable. On the court, there is evidence of players potentially prioritizing their own shot attempts over the team’s success, even when it means ignoring a teammate who is single-handedly keeping them in the game. Off the court, there is a readiness to engage in distracting public spats. Both point to a crisis of leadership and unity.

This isn’t just about a bad game or a Twitter argument. It’s about a culture. The Indiana Fever are currently operating under the most intense media spotlight in the WNBA, largely due to the arrival of Caitlin Clark. But with Clark sidelined, the team’s underlying issues have been laid bare. The pressure seems to be cracking the foundations of their chemistry rather than forging them into a stronger unit. If players cannot trust each other to make the right basketball play on the court, the entire enterprise is doomed to fail. Before they can figure out how to beat their next opponent, the Indiana Fever must first stop beating themselves.