Sorry, man.
Well, that makes one.
And Bobby Plump makes two.
That was fairly obnoxious.
Looks like Bring your Daughter to Work Day in the WNBA.
What really impressed me came just after that photo was taken. Jennie Finch drank a glass of water while Danica Patrick sang.
I read this as “That was fairly obvious” which is actually kind of accurate.
Um, what I mean is of course when they fought in the unedited Morgenstern version…yeah, that it…
:smack:
heh heh. I was being graceful. Yeah, the Morgenstern version never really took off.
No, it’s neither obvious not accurate. If you don’t appreciate women’s basketball, that’s fine, but there’s no need to insult those who do.
Oh good grief. Please point out where I insulted women’s basketball? I made a fairly sarcastic joke about the relative lack of a fanbase. Yes, logically I know that there are actually many thousands of fans that exist, but in comparison to all major sports and most minor ones, women’s basketball trails in terms of a fan base. Heck, I am one of the fans. I have a wife that plays and a daughter that likely will. But, I am also fully realistic of women’s basketball’s place in sporting society. It’s fun to watch. There are some really, really good players. On the college level it is almost as good as the guys game. But, the WNBA exists solely at the discretion of the NBA at this point. Without NBA money getting it going and propping it up, the WNBA would likely not exist. Even if it did exist, it would do so while operating at a large yearly loss with much less airtime and press.
The WNBA needs a whole lot of fixing before it moves up the ladder of pro sports. The brevity of the season does not help them. All-Star voting starts sometime around the 5th game of the season. The playoff series are way too short at 3 game sets. I know all leagues in their infancy have issues. The WNBA is certainly still in that stage. Teams moving and folding hamper a potential fan base. The WNBA made a lot of early mistakes in team location that they are just now correcting. The idea of locating teams in NBA cities wasn’t smart business sense. Sure, it made it cheaper on the owners to use pre-existing NBA venues, staff, and resources. But, they plunked teams down in locations unlikely to lead to long-term success because of it. They finally have started focusing teams in women’s basketball hotbeds to take advantage of pre-existing bases from strong college programs.
If the NBA keeps funding the WNBA, I would predict that things will be much rosier in 7 years. Longer seasons, greater national interest, more known players by casual fans. But, for now, they fall somewhere around 13th-15th place in the list of sports that fans care about.
Sure, I know that logically more than one person cares, because I can think of 2.5 in my own house. But, the reality is that comparitively few people care. And, when jokes are made about anything, it’s usually some sort of facetious overstatement of a shortcoming. Heck, I’m a Cubs fan, I know this better than anyone.
But, for you to suggest I insulted fans of the sport is idiotic grandstanding martyrdom at best and complete cluelessness about reality at worst.
Dude. Got a little overreacting goin’ on yerself, there.
Look, I didn’t want to get into a huge hijack about the WNBA. Your response made it appear as though you agreed with the original comment I responded to, and it got my back up. Saying “That makes one” implies that nobody else likes it, which by extension implies that it’s not worth liking. Surely you can see that.
Yeah, I’m a little sensitive about it, because I’ve encountered too much real belittling of the WNBA by people who have never even watched a game. There are a lot of people out there who genuinely feel that women’s pro ball shouldn’t exist because they don’t play the same way the men do, they can’t, with few exceptions, dunk or otherwise play the flashy street ball you see so much of in the NBA. It gets tiresome to be put down, y’know? Makes one a little tetchy sometimes.
I don’t think women have kickable junk.
Yeah, probably so. I apologize for that. I do think my post was pretty accurate regarding the WNBA though. I was thinking more about it, and the WNBA is actually kind of following the track that the NBA went through in it’s infancy when it comes to popularity. The NBA had a lot of franchise movement, eventually locating in smaller areas and fan-base areas, playing in smaller arenas to smaller crowds. Eventually, they broke through (after many years) and became a player on the national scene. But, it was only a couple of decades ago that they even had a decent national TV deal that showed the Finals, let alone regular season games.
The WNBA will have to be content with crawling along for a while. I think they need a good 10 years of under the radar action until true growth happens. By then, they will have a generation of female players that grew up with the league, they’ll have a slew of big-name retired ambassadors to promote the game, coach the teams, and expand the sphere of the league. In those 10 years, the style of play will change. Not to the horrid NBA level we are currently subjected to. Rather, the games will be more high-flying, but in a good way. The era of the 5’7" guard will be mostly gone. Of 10 players on the floor, the vast majority will be over 6’. Most of them significantly so. Shooting percentages should increase resulting in more scoring (which is usually a good thing interest wise). I would expect dunking to be commonplace, on average of 1 per game.
In 10 years, I can see the league still being behind the NBA, NHL, MLB, NFL, college football, NASCAR, golf, and men’s college basketball. But, it will have moved ahead of poker, women’s college basketball, tennis, and gymanstics/ice skating. And, in a life span of 20 years, that’s fairly impressive.
Some of those ladies…I dunno. They may be hiding a little something…
A kick to the pubic bone, which is in that general sort of area, will put a woman in agony.
Yeah, that’s definitely true. The NBA took quite a while to get going, and it may be even slower for the WNBA, given the resistance in some quarters. But hell, it being small right now is a good thing in a lot of fans’ eyes. Tickets are super cheap, and the players very accessible, which helps immensely in building the future player/fan base. I’ve only been to one game (gotta drive clear to Charlotte, which is a hike), but I saw lots of families with small kids there.
The league is already starting to get better, because the women’s college game is getting better. No longer is it Tennessee-UConn every year; I was thrilled to see two first-time teams in the NCAA final this year. Well, I would have been more thrilled to see Duke in there (shaddup), but nevertheless, it was an exciting tourney. And the top players are going into the WNBA draft rather than another career direction. Slowly but surely, it’s happening.
A couple interesting notes about height: Duke’s (shaddup) roster only has four players under 6’ tall, and I’m sure there are other teams with similar stats. And in contrast, the Charlotte Sting have just hired Muggsy Bogues as their coach; the shortest player is 3" taller than he is. 
So did you follow the Atlanta Glory of the old ABL? Or weren’t you in Georgia then?
Count Long Time First Time (my sweetie) and I among the board’s fans of women’s basketball – we have season tickets to the Indiana Fever, as well as Kristy Curry’s Purdue squad. Before I moved to Lafayette, I lived in the Cleveland area, and attended several games of the late lamented Rockers.
By the way, Becky Hammon managed to grab eight rebounds while scoring 22 points as the Liberty beat the Sparks tonight. And it’s amazing to see Margo Dydek in person, as I did when the Connecticut Sun visited Indiana’s Conseco Fieldhouse the other night – Margo towers a foot over the Fever’s Natalie Williams (her former teammate with the Utah Starzz, and a woman who probably gets plenty of “gee, you’re tall” looks and comments when not on the basketball floor).
No, I wasn’t here then. And I’ve actually only been a basketball fan for a few years now, but it obviously really captured me–it was watching a women’s college game that did it. My hubby (former poster here UncleBill) is a Dukie, so I’d go to the alumni gatherings to watch games with him, just to be a good wife, but the first time we went to watch one of the women’s games, WOW, I was hooked. I followed Alana Beard from her Duke career into the WNBA with the Washington Mystics, which is, conveniently enough, my hometown team. It would be great if there were still a team here; there are hardly any games broadcast on TV, and going to the games is so much more fun anyway.
Atlanta barely has an NBA team anymore. I’d like to see the WNBA expand here because I’m pretty sure they would outdraw the Hawks by a pretty good margin.