Is Stephanie White's return to the Fever imminent?

The Fever are the latest WNBA team with a coaching vacancy, joining the Sky and four others, but don’t expect that position to stay open for long.

On Sunday morning, a month after being ousted by the Sun in the first round of the playoffs, the team announced the firing of coach Christie Sides, who went 33-47 in two seasons, leading the Fever to the playoffs this year for the first time since 2016 with the help of Rookie of the Year Caitlin Clark.

Sides’ exit paves the way for the return of Stephanie White, currently the Sun’s coach and a former Fever player, assistant and head coach. Multiple sources expect the Fever job to be hers.

Although she’s still under contract to the Sun through next season, White has been in discussions with other teams and reportedly has narrowed her list of potential landing spots to the Sky and Fever, although returning to the Sun also hasn’t been ruled out.

The Fever, who are considered the front-runner for her services, can offer White proximity to family, as well as the opportunity to coach not just Clark but 2023 Rookie of the Year Aliyah Boston and guard Kelsey Mitchell if she opts to re-sign in free agency.

White, an Indiana native, was on the Fever’s roster from 2000 to 2004 before getting her coaching start as an assistant with the Sky from 2007 to 2010. She returned to the Fever in 2011, joining coach Lin Dunn’s bench, and was on staff for the Fever’s 2012 WNBA title. In 2015, she was promoted to head coach and led the Fever back to the WNBA Finals, where they lost in five games to the Lynx. She left to coach at Vanderbilt in 2016.

White’s impending return to the Fever could force the Sky to rethink where they’re headed in their own coaching search. General manager Jeff Pagliocca has had preliminary conversations with multiple candidates, including former Sparks coach Curt Miller and former Wings coach Latricia Trammell, but nothing past the explor-atory stage. Several assistant coaches, including the Aces’ Tyler Marsh and Lynx’s Katie Smith, warrant consideration, as do the Mercury’s Kristi Toliver and the Sun’s Briann January. But none of those candidates has experience as a WNBA head coach — the same risk the Sky took last season when they hired Teresa Weatherspoon.

Pagliocca has not indicated a date by which he’d like to have a coach in place, but the expectation is the Sky will fill the position before the expansion draft Dec. 6.