Fever thriving behind rookie coach Stephanie White

Associated PressSep 8, 2015, 10:10 AM EDT

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) Tamika Catchings looks around Bankers Life Fieldhouse these days and sees a completely different world.

The 2011 league MVP is surrounded by new teammates, younger players and a familiar face playing an unfamiliar role. Yes, Stephanie White is calling the shots from the bench.

At times, the thought of playing for an ex-teammate makes Catchings chuckle, but the seamless transition White has made from WNBA player to broadcaster to assistant coach and now to successful head coach also has the 13-year veteran taking notes.

“It’s fun to see her put her own twist on this team and the expectations she has,” Catchings said. “I don’t want to coach, but the steps she has taken to put herself in position to be successful, those are the things you take away from it and try to make your own.”

White has surprised many by turning what was expected to be a rebuilding team into a playoff-bound team for a WNBA-record 11th consecutive season.

Sure, there were reasons to doubt White & Co.

Four key players opened the season battling injuries. Longtime stalwarts such as Catchings and point guard Briann January tried to get acclimated to playing with newcomers such as Shenise Johnson and Natalie Achonwa. The 36-year-old Catchings had to accept spending more time on the bench, and everyone had to buy into White’s revamped up-tempo style.

Even during a rugged start, White stayed true to her principles. The woman who left high school as the highest-scoring girl in Indiana history and who left Purdue with a national championship stuck to her plan. Now, she’s in contention for the coach of the year award, but not yet satisfied.

“I think we can get better, be more efficient at both ends of the floor,” she said. “We’ve put together a stretch that’s pretty good because of our sheer will. But there are areas we can be better in and we want to be better in.”

White also realizes she’s still growing as a coach.

She constantly seeks advice from her predecessor, Hall of Famer Lin Dunn, Pacers coach Frank Vogel or even outsiders. She often breaks down game tape to see where she can improve.

White brings a different perspective to the game. After four seasons as a college assistant, four years on the staff of the WNBA’s Chicago Sky and five years as a broadcaster, she returned to her home state as one of Dunn’s assistants in time to celebrate the Fever’s 2012 championship run. So when Dunn announced she would retire at the end of last season, White was the obvious replacement and players – including a certain former teammate – quickly jumped on board.

“As a player, she was always like `I’m tired of her (the coach) harping on me about this stuff.’ Now, it’s like `I’m tired of telling you about this stuff,” Catchings said, laughing. “But when you look at our team and a lot of teams that have coaching changes, drastic changes like we have, a lot of people didn’t think we’d be very good. I think a lot of people dismissed her and dismissed us, as a team.”

Opponents that dared to discount White and the Fever in May now realize they made a big mistake. Indiana turned around its season with a six-game winning streak in August, a span that included a franchise record four straight wins on the road.

Those in the locker room aren’t surprised.

“She’s a total player’s coach. She wants everyone to be successful and she does a great job of holding us accountable,” January said. “She understands because she’s been on both sides of it and she wants to communicate.”

Catchings is not about to disagree.

“I think she’s the best coach in the league right now,” Catchings said.

In rare contact, U.S. offers Russia deal for Griner, Whelan

Associated PressJul 27, 2022, 6:16 PM EDT

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WASHINGTON – The U.S. has offered a deal to Russia aimed at bringing home WNBA star Brittney Griner and another jailed American, Paul Whelan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday. In a sharp reversal of previous policy, Blinken also said he expects to speak with his Kremlin counterpart for the first time since before Russia invaded Ukraine to discuss the deal and other matters.

Blinken’s comments marked the first time the U.S. government has publicly revealed any concrete action it has taken to secure the release of Griner, who was arrested on drug-related charges at a Moscow airport in February and testified Wednesday at her trial. Though it is unclear if the proposal will be enough for Russia to release the Americans, the public acknowledgment of the offer at a time when the U.S. has otherwise shunned Russia reflects the mounting pressure on the administration over Griner and Whelan and its determination to get them home.

“We put a substantial proposal on the table weeks ago to facilitate their release. Our governments have communicated repeatedly and directly on that proposal, and I’ll use the conversation to follow up personally and, I hope, to move us toward a resolution,” Blinken said.

Blinken did not offer details on the proposed deal outlined to the Russians, but U.S. officials suggested it is similar to the prisoner swap that secured the release of Marine veteran Trevor Reed in April. Russia has made no secret of its desire for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout to be freed from U.S. prison and the officials would not rule out that Bout’s release is on the table.

President Joe Biden, who authorized the Reed prisoner swap after meeting with his parents, signed off on the deal the U.S. offered in this case, officials said.

“The president and his team are willing to take extraordinary steps to bring them home,” John Kirby, a White House national security spokesman, told reporters.

Should the call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov take place, it would be the first conversation that the men have held since Feb. 15, about a week before Russia invaded Ukraine. U.S. officials said the desire for an answer on the prisoner offer was the primary, but not only, reason that the U.S. on Wednesday requested a new call with Lavrov.

Blinken said he would also be speaking to Lavrov about the importance of Russia complying with a U.N.-brokered deal to free multiple tons of Ukrainian grain from storage and warning him about the dangers of possible Russian attempts to annex portions of eastern and southern Ukraine.

“There is utility to conveying clear, direct messages to the Russians on key priorities for us,” including the release of Griner and Whelan, he said. They also include “what we’re seeing and hearing around the world is a desperate need for the foods, the desperate need for prices to decrease.”

Whelan, a corporate security executive from Michigan, was sentenced in 2020 to 16 years in prison on espionage charges. He and his family have vigorously asserted his innocence. The U.S. government has denounced the charges as false.

Griner, in Russian custody for the last five months, acknowledged in court that she had vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage when she arrived in Moscow in February but contends she had no criminal intent and packed the cartridges inadvertently.

At her trial Wednesday, Griner said she did not know how the cannabis oil ended up in her bag but explained she had a doctor’s recommendation for it and had packed in haste. She said she was pulled aside at the airport after inspectors found the cartridges, but that a language interpreter translated only a fraction of what was said during her questioning and that officials instructed her to sign documents without providing an explanation.

Griner faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of transporting drugs.

The U.S. government has long resisted prisoner swaps out of concern that it could encourage additional hostage-taking and promote false equivalency between a wrongfully detained American and a foreign national regarded as justly convicted. But an earlier deal in April, in which Reed was traded for jailed Russian pilot, Konstantin Yaroshenko, appeared to open the door to similar resolutions in the future and the Biden administration has been hounded with political pressure to bring home Griner and other Americans designated as unjustly detained.

Russia has for years expressed interest in the release of Bout, a Russian arms dealer once labeled the “Merchant of Death,” who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2012 on charges that he schemed to illegally sell millions of dollars in weapons.

There was no indication that Blinken and Lavrov had communicated to secure Reed’s release. Their last publicly recognized contact was Feb. 22, when Blinken wrote to Lavrov to cancel a meeting they had planned as a last-ditch effort to avert the Russian invasion, saying Moscow had shown no interest in serious diplomacy on the matter. The State Department said later that Russia’s diplomacy was “Kabuki Theater” – all show and no substance.

The two last met in person in Geneva in January to discuss what was then Russia’s massive military build-up along Ukraine’s border and Russian demands for NATO to reduce its presence in eastern Europe and permanently deny Ukraine membership. The U.S. rejected the Russian demands.

Blinken and Lavrov avoided each other earlier this month at the next time they were in the same place at the same time: at a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of 20 nations in Bali, Indonesia.

The two men will next be in the same city at the same time next week in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where they will both be attending the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum. It was not immediately clear if the phone call ahead of that meeting, set for Aug. 4-5, would presage an in-person discussion.

LeBron critical on his show of US efforts to get Griner home

Associated PressJul 12, 2022, 8:36 PM EDT

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LeBron James is publicly criticizing the United States’ handling of WNBA All-Star Brittney Griner’s case in a trailer for an upcoming episode of his television show: “The Shop: Uninterrupted.”

Griner is on trial in Russia for drug possession. She pleaded guilty last week and will appear again in court on Thursday.

“Now, how can she feel like America has her back?” James said in the trailer. “I would be feeling like, `Do I even wanna go back to America?”‘

It’s unclear when the show was filmed, although in the trailer it is mentioned that Griner had been in Russia for more than 110 days, which would have been nearly five weeks ago as she was detained on Feb. 17.

During the weeks since day 110, in addition to the trial beginning and the guilty plea, Griner’s wife Cherelle has had a phone conversation with President Joe Biden. Biden also received a letter from Brittney Griner on July 4 and sent a letter back to her which she was given in court last week.

There is also no mention of other detained Americans in the trailer.

Klutch Sports Group, the agency that represents James, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Washington hasn’t disclosed its strategy in the case and the U.S. may have little leverage with Moscow because of strong animosity over its actions in Ukraine. The State Department’s designation of Griner being wrongfully detained moves her case under the supervision of its special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, effectively the government’s chief hostage negotiator.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said Washington will continue to work for the release of Griner, as well as other Americans held by Moscow, including former Marine Paul Whelan.

“We will not relent until Brittney, Paul Whelan, and all other wrongfully detained Americans are reunited with their loved ones,” he tweeted last week,

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday that former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson had been in contact with the National Security Council, but wouldn’t comment on “his travel or what he intends to do” amid reports that Richardson plans to travel to Russia and work on Griner’s release.

James’ show will air on Friday.