Fever begin front office rebuild with Sheri Sam as assistant general manager

The hire

The Indiana Fever have hired Sheri Sam as assistant general manager, a source confirmed to ESPN on Friday. The Indy Star first reported the move.

Sam joins from the Portland Trail Blazers, where she had been scouting manager since 2022. Her work there covered college and professional player scouting and evaluation, and ESPN reported that the Fever had planned to invest in their scouting and analytics staff. The Fever described the position as one part of a larger plan, and the hiring process itself was short: conversations began in the summer, and the announcement came seven days after the front office was cleared.

She starts Monday and will focus on scouting and analytics, according to the Indy Star. Her first weeks will overlap with the NCAA women's basketball season, which begins Sunday, and with a front office that is still being rebuilt.

The gap above her

Indiana emptied its front office on Oct. 23. Team president Kelly Krauskopf stepped down and general manager Amber Cox was fired, leaving the Fever without either role.

There is no timeline for hiring a general manager. Pacers Sports & Entertainment has hired Excel Search & Advisory to assist the search and does not plan to hire a team president, the Indy Star reported.

That means Sam will begin work without a GM above her. The Fever described the hire as one step toward better scouting and player evaluation, and she is expected to work with the scouting staff and the coaching staff on personnel and talent identification.

What the job covers

The role is narrower than a general manager's and wider than a scout's. ESPN reported that the Fever had planned to invest in scouting and analytics, and that adding Sam was one step in that direction. Her Portland work covered college and professional player evaluation, which maps onto a WNBA front office that has to prepare for a draft and for pro personnel decisions at the same time.

The timing matters. The NCAA women's season begins Sunday, so the college evaluation calendar starts immediately. Free agency and trades sit on a different calendar, and the Fever have roster decisions to make before either one arrives. An assistant GM focused on scouting can begin on the college side while the search for a general manager continues.

Ten years in the league

Sam played 10 seasons in the WNBA and won championships in Seattle in 2004 and Detroit in 2008. She also spent one season with the Fever, in 2007.

She played college basketball at Vanderbilt, where she won SEC tournament MVP honors and earned a degree in human and organizational development in 1996. She also holds a global management certificate from NYU and an NBA CBA certification.

After retiring, she moved into the business and scouting side. Portland hired her as scouting manager in 2022, and the conversations about her joining Indiana began over the summer, according to the Indy Star.

What she inherits

The Fever finished 28-16 and earned the No. 6 seed for the third consecutive season. They lost to the Las Vegas Aces in the first round of the playoffs.

That result ended a season that had begun with expectations of a deeper run, and it came before the front office changes. The roster questions now sit with a staff that is not yet complete.

Sam's immediate task is evaluation rather than roster construction. Scouting during the college season is the part of the job that starts first, and the Fever have said they want to improve in exactly that area.

Our report on the WNBA's 30th season records covers the league context she is entering, and our report on A'ja Wilson's fifth MVP covers the team that eliminated Indiana. Our report on Cheryl Reeve's executive award looks at how front offices are being judged in the league.

The Fever also have to decide how much of the roster to keep. A 28-16 season is good enough to make the playoffs for a third straight year and not good enough to advance, and the front office that built it is no longer there. The evaluation work Sam starts now feeds those decisions, even if she does not make them alone.

What comes next

The general manager search is the larger question. Until it is settled, the Fever's decision-making structure remains unusual: an assistant GM starting first, a president's chair that will stay empty, and outside consultants running the search.

Sam's hiring does not answer who will run the basketball operation. It does give the Fever a person in the building with scouting experience and a playing career that spans two championship organizations.

Indiana's offseason will be measured by the GM hire and the roster moves that follow. The assistant GM hire is the first piece, and it arrived seven days after the front office was cleared out.

For now the Fever have one confirmed front office hire and a search firm working on the bigger job. The next announcement will say more about the shape of the rebuild than this one does.

The Fever have not named an interim general manager, and the sources do not say whether one will be appointed. For now the scouting work and the search run on separate tracks.