He makes a good point about volleyball. Very few fans know or even care that the women’s net is lower.
Would women’s basketball be higher scoring and more fun to watch with a lower rim?
What do you think?
Have they raised the rim for men’s basketball as the average height has gone up over the years? If so, yes. If not, no.
I don’t think a lower rim is a good idea. There’s a good reason for a lower net in volleyball - without the ability to spike, a rally would effectively never end. You don’t need slam dunks in basketball to keep the scoring ticking along.
Personally I find the lack of slam dunks in women’s basketball makes the game much more watchable than men’s basketball. Similarly, women’s tennis is more watchable than the slugfest that men’s tennis has become.
No, and they have had women’s leagues before the WNBA with lower rims and it didn’t get people to watch.
I really can’t think of anything that would make a basketball game fun to watch…
Remove those pesky rules against fighting.
Add another ball.
Settle fouls with a 1:1 match, rather than a free throw.
Rollerskates.
Ironic that this is coming from a coach who always refers to his players as “guys”, never “women” or “ladies”. If there needs to be a discrepancy, it should be achieved by raising the rim for the men. The average female playing the game now is probably around the height of the typical male competitor in Dr. Naismith’s day, so today’s women’s game is probably closer to the inventor’s concept than is the men’s counterpart.
I see no inherent objection to having lower rims for women: Qualitatively, it seems no different to me than having a different-sized ball or a different 3-point-line. But I lack sufficient expertise in the sport to say whether it’d actually be a good thing or not.
If would induce more interest in women’s basketball by increasing dunks then do it. But I doubt anything will increase the interest in women’s basketball among the general population (with the exception of some uniform changes that wouldn’t be readily accepted and would likely lower the athletic standards of the game).
Leave the rim at 10 feet, take off the backboards and ban dribbling and you’ve just reinvented netball.
Geno Auriemma coaches a women’s team, so I don’t think anybody would listen if he suggested changes to the men’s game. I don’t really have an opinion on his suggestions but I don’t think there’s some kind of moral issue at work. Women’s basketball is already played with a smaller ball, as noted, so there’s nothing wrong in principle with lowering the rim.
If a lot of what the fans like about basketball is the above-the-rim-dunking aspect of it, and if the women’s game is failing achieve popularity, then changing it to increase that aspect of the game seems only sensible.
I certainly don’t see anything offensive, or patronizing, or what have you, about such a plan.
I think it’s a good idea - in a “perfect world”. However, in real life, it won’t happen, and here’s why:
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You can’t do it in college without doing it in high school as well - otherwise, every incoming female college player has to learn how to shoot free throws all over again, since the rim would now be in a different position.
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There’s no way they’re going to force every high school in the country to replace their existing backboards with ones that can be raised and lowered so the rims can be at different heights for boys and girls. Cost has already been given as the primary reason they don’t mandate a shot clock in high school. (Some states, including California, do have high school shot clocks, but this goes against the national federation’s rules.)
The main reason to lower the rims for women (as opposed to raising them for men) is to make the women’s college game an “above the rim” game like the men’s game, which might make it more popular.
You would also have to bring back the old six-a-side rules, where nobody is allowed to cross the center line, to make it more like netball.