Connecticut Sun point guard Lindsay Whalen is certainly not the most athletically gifted player and she doesn’t necessarily even make spectacular plays, and yet she consistently stands out in almost every game she plays, even to fans who can hardly spell her name.
Sometime during the first half of the Seattle Storm’s 86-74 home victory over the Connecticut Sun last Thursday, Bethlehem Shoals got my attention to show me a tweet from his second WNBA experience (corrected below for your reading enjoyment).
Whalen is such a great PG she doesn’t even need the ball!
While Shoals’ commentary may strike rational individuals as absurd, Whalen consistently stands out in almost every game she plays as in complete control of everything going on around her. She has a presence on the court that is felt even when she is doing things that seem rather pedestrian.
But how exactly do we describe what makes Whalen such a great player?
After Tina Thompson missed a baseline jumper with 4:49 left in the 3rd quarter of what looked to be a Sparks blowout, Whalen snuck through a gap in the lane untouched to grab the rebound. Having secured the ball and brushed off Sparks forward Candace Parker’s attempt to swipe the ball from her, Whalen left the 2008 MVP behind and pushed the ball up court at ¾ speed.
As she crossed the three point line, rookie forward Lindsay Wisdom-Hylton was faced with the unfortunate task of trying to stop Whalen. While common sense might tell us that Wisdom-Hylton had no shot to stop Whalen from going to the basket – having already drawn the attention of the defense, Whalen came to a stop just inside of the free throw line and just shuffled a pass to Sun forward Sandrine Gruda for an open jumper on the wing.
That play is certainly not the most spectacular of Whalen plays and in fact, it wasn’t even the most spectacular of her season-high nine assists from Sunday night. However, the play is quintessential Whalen, affecting the game with nothing more than the subtlest of moves to make the simplest of plays…repeatedly.
She makes basketball look as simple as lacing up our shoes.
Furthermore, it seems that Whalen has made a science of capitalizing on simplest principles of basketball, methodically analyzing a situation to make the best play possible.
To extend the point, even when watching Connecticut Sun point guard Lindsay Whalen in losses, it’s easy to see why she’s a perennial MVP candidate. Her presence on the court is felt, regardless of whether she has the ball in her hands. She’s tough enough to dive deep into the paint for rebounds and graceful enough to make the perfect pass to her teammate for a three pointer. It’s that attitude of winning by any means necessary that makes her great.
On his blog FreeDarko.com, Shoals would later make the claim that the WNBA “needs more Whalen”, primarily because of her “attitude” – “She talks non-stop, plays the whole game with a scowl on her face, and stared down the ref at the half.” However, I would like to expand upon why the WNBA needs more Whalen while also making a more narrow claim.
Earlier in his article, Shoals made what I think is the far more interesting claim in his article, something that I didn’t quite appreciate when we were caught up in the chaos of Key Arena on Thursday night.
I was serious when I twitted that she doesn't even need the ball to operate masterfully from the point. Depending on how you look at it, it's either quasi-mystical, or the kind of what people used to say about Deron Williams ("he gets hockey assists and stays within the system") before dude came to life, but true.
She gives it up almost as soon as she crossed half-court, or posts up at the top of the key, Cassell-style, but as a way of attracting attention and feeding someone else. And these aren't passes for assists; mostly, they set into motion a series of obvious events (two, three, four passes) that result in an open shot. Her teammates usually miss, and Whalen herself can hit the lane strong and sink jumpers at will, but whatever. She's bigger than that. Closest NBA comparison: Old Jason Kidd, if old Jason Kidd were young and could shoot.
(Speaking of which, last night I decided that comparing NBA to WNBA players is the logical next step of NBA esoterica. Like when Kevin told me "Darko was supposed to be what Lauren Jackson is." These days, everyone knows everything about every random player. If you value elitism and obscurity in your fandom—and buy my argument that the WNBA is a variation on the NBA, not an inferior product like college—then welcome to the new frontier.)
There are players in the WNBA like Whalen, Jackson, Parker and Cappie Pondexter that defy our natural inclination toward NBA comparison. These players don’t really have a NBA comparison unless you start fantasizing about maximizing the talent of superstars. They truly do represent a different, not inferior, style of basketball performance.
To stick with Whalen, the only way to make a NBA comparison is by either idealizing what we wished NBA players to be or somehow trying to play with time and the natural course of development to bring together the athleticism of youth with the savvy of age.
And perhaps that is the allure of Whalen for NBA fans –not only does she exhibit intensity and toughness that people do not normally associate with women’s sports, but she is an idealized image of what we wish our favorite point guards would become.
So it should be no surprise that longtime NBA fans, such as myself, Shoals, Phoenix Stan, and Stan’s guest Wattdogg10 all immediately notice Whalen as standing out as something special when we comment on the WNBA.
Players like Whalen, Jackson, Parker, and Pondexter are truly intriguing basketball narratives unto themselves that any true fan of the sport should be able to recognize as special and appreciate. Again, if you can't appreciate how these players play the game, it might be time for you to abandon basketball altogether.
So to elaborate on Shoals’ point, it’s not just that the WNBA needs more Whalen to enhance the product, but “more Whalen” might actually attract NBA fans simply because she would give them pause and really provide a new vision of the game they love. Ditto for Jackson, Parker, and Pondexter.
Continue reading...
Mercury blogger Ben York has challenged a hater to watch a live game and actually base their opinion on evidence rather than spurious assumptions.
But I saw a different strategy yesterday while clicking around the University of Washington website to check out their women's basketball schedule: why not tap into local university season ticket holders?
Women's basketball season ticket holders are invited to attend a meet and greet session with Husky head coach Tia Jackson and members of the 2009-10 women's basketball team, and attend the Seattle Storm vs. Connecticut Sun game at Key Arena on August 27.
I don't know whether this has been done before at UW or elsewhere. And perhaps UW is in a unique position to do this well because head coach Tia Jackson is a former WNBA player coaching a team in a WNBA city.
Nevertheless, it's an interesting idea.
NCAA women's season ticket holders likely don't have the same biases as NBA fans or outright haters. And they might enjoy watching the "best of the best" compete as an extension of a sport they already follow.
But most of all, you know they're willing to spend money on women's basketball, which makes them particularly attractive as potential fans.
Of course, I know that college and professional basketball don't mix for everyone -- I know plenty of fans who like one and disdain the other. (Update: Clay Kallam has written about this problem as part of larger phenomenon of "Our Girls Syndrome".)
But if the goal is to expand a fan base, this seems to be a strategy worth pursuing more aggressively, even if the assumption is that this demographic of NCAA season ticket holders have already consciously chosen to either follow the WNBA or ignore it. In the event they have not been to a game, it might be a good way to tap into a group of people who you know are willing to pay to watch women's basketball.
I am planning on being at that August 27th game with two UW students...so maybe I'll check out Jackson's meet and greet before I fixate on comparing Storm point guard Sue Bird and Connecticut Sun point guard Lindsay Whalen. And maybe, we'll come away wanting to check out a UW game as well.
(Extended) side note: I took a look at season tickets for UW women's and men's basketball, which are both reasonably priced, I think. The men's team figures to be better than the women's (again), but I want to give women's NCAA basketball a shot this season. But wouldn't it be cool if you could get some sort of discounted package deal for getting both? Wouldn't that be another interesting way of attracting fans to the NCAA women's game? Continue reading...
Today, Shoals (finally) posted his first-hand account of the WNBA on the Sporting News and did a great job of transforming my description of our conversation into a more coherent argument in support of the WNBA, in addition to challenging the dominant assumptions that NBA fans might hold. An excerpt:
As far as I can tell, WNBA players can't jump, run or throw their weight around like their male counterparts. And they do play a more technically adept game. But they are also seriously skilled, in ways that college (amateur) athletes are not, for simple reasons of arithmetic. Both guards handle the ball and run the offense; big men—er, women—post up all over the place, regularly pass off the ball, and reliably hit jumpers like it's expected of them; everyone cuts like crazy, keeping up a level of activity that at some point is bound to outstrip or shed the coach's instructions.
It's less a diminished version of the NBA than a mutant strain of it, not unlike various incarnations of Nellieball or D'Antoni Land. It might be even a more sophisticated form of basketball than either the NBA status quo or men's college ball, which it pretty much makes a mockery of when it comes to both style and content. I don't know enough about European ball to draw that analogy with confidence, but there might be a family resemblance there.
It also reminded me quite a bit of the NBA of the 1960s, at least in the non-differentiated guard and forward positions, emphasis on movement and cutting, and varied offensive sets. Maybe it wasn't by accident that Bill Russell was at the game that night. Yes, he's a friend of Mercury GM Ann Meyers, but he's also on record as being a fan of the WNBA's style of play. And when Russell first entered the league, it had just discovered the shot-clock and was finally developing an identity apart from college ball that was to its benefit. A decade-plus down the road, the WNBA players not only have gotten better, they also have a better idea of what makes their league unique.
It's not making nebulous pleas to just "expect great" -- it actually makes a case for why WNBA basketball is worth watching, opening up the black box that the WNBA's marketing scheme created...and assuming that those insistent on making sexist assumptions about the WNBA won't be convinced anyway.
So after reading his piece, I wonder (again), what could the WNBA hypothetically take from perspectives such as Shoals' to think about how to market the league?
Continue reading...
When Bethlehem Shoals of FreeDarko.com (a blog about the NBA, but not merely about basketball) asked me to recommend a Seattle Storm game for us to go to, the choice seemed obvious.
“The best game for a NBA fan to see will be the Mercury on Aug 4 or Aug 21,” I wrote back.
The Mercury feature two of the top candidates for WNBA MVP in Phoenix wing players Diana Taurasi and Cappie Pondexter, a high-octane offense that almost any NBA fan would recognize as reminiscent to Phoenix’s NBA counterpart, and as Mechelle Voepel wrote last month, “Storm vs. Mercury just has that panache”.
And last night's game certainly did not disappoint. Nor did the Key Arena atmosphere.
Although the Storm lost to the Phoenix Mercury in overtime 101-90, the game featured heroics from Storm point guard Sue Bird (again) at the end of regulation, a Taurasi-like performance from Taurasi, and Storm guard Tanisha Wright torching the Mercury for 21 in the first half en route to a career-high 25 points.
And oh yeah, Bill Russell was there too…and even more importantly, a Storm Trooper tried to step onto the court after a particularly bad call from the ref in the second half.
However, I spent most of the game talking to Shoals and another male friend, who I shall call Rudy (yes, the basketball version). Neither of them had ever been to a Storm game and both had expressed interest in going at various times this summer.
All three of us fit that 18-35 year old male demographic and I’ve spent quite a bit of time watching both NBA and NCAA men’s basketball with them at various times. I would consider both informed NBA fans that appreciate professional basketball as a sport as much as for its entertainment value. Rudy is a New York Knicks fan who I’ve watched, played, and talked basketball with for about four years now. We have all attended graduate school and are overeducated to different degrees.
These guys aren’t the “average lunkhead male” – they appreciate the game of basketball and have the ability to formulate sentences without grunting and demeaning women.
So long story short – they both enjoyed the game (in different ways perhaps) and said they would like to come back.
During the game we had one of those running conversations full of tangents, non-sequiturs, and worm holes, talking about the league, making comparisons to the NBA, and talking about Bill Russell. And there were elements of our conversation during the game that I found interesting in the context of my ongoing interest in how the WNBA could market to male NBA fans.
So to help answer the question, how can the WNBA market the game to male fans?, I ask another question:
What sort of first impression(s) might the WNBA make on (over)educated male NBA fans? The crossover worm hole
Shoals met Rudy and I on the east side of Key Arena and immediately tossed me into one of his warped worm holes. A tweet sums up the issue nicely:
"Talking with @kpelton about who has the best crossover-as-fake, not just handle, in the league. I vote Wade, he suggests Rose. Et toi?", he tweeted.
Good lord.
If you knew me, you would know that I was not actually annoyed at the question because it’s stupid or somehow insignificant. The question was annoying because I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Shoals and I had been to the Adonai Hood Classic on Sunday as well and we talked about the issue there while watching Jamal Crawford. But as we started to come up with answers at the Storm game it became clear that the answer changed depending on any number of other variables that influence a player's decision to make a crossover.
Anyway...Pelton had apparently suggested that Cappie Pondexter had among the best crossovers in the WNBA and I agreed. So in addition to mentally running through every different variant of the “crossover” that I could imagine, I began the game paying close attention to Pondexter’s crossover. And of course, with Wright’s phenomenal first half performance, her ability to get to the basket with her crossover also became a part of the conversation.
But even though I’ve watched Pondexter play quite a bit, she never ceases to impress – as I told Shoals and Rudy, she is a triple-double threat almost every night. And her crossover is a major part of that.
She not only has arguably the best crossover in the WNBA, but also uses it extremely effectively in a number of different ways – on the fast break to get by whoever is standing in between her and the basket, in the half court to gain separation for whichever type of jumper she feels like punishing her defender with at the moment, or simply to penetrate to the basket to set up another player for a scoring opportunity.
Pondexter didn’t actually have a stellar game – going 6-19 from the field – but she also grabbed 8 boards and recorded 5 assists, at least backing up claim that she’s a triple-double threat.
Making NBA comparisons
At various points during the game we attempted to make comparisons to NBA players, since their frame of reference is the NBA. I normally hate doing that (because really it does a disservice to all sides), but since Rudy kept coming up with them, I rolled with it and it ends up being a good way to familiarize oneself with the game.
For example, we decided that Storm forward Lauren Jackson was like the Dallas Mavericks’ Dirk Nowitzki with the heart to play inside, Storm forward Swin Cash like the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Jeff Green with a better perimeter game, and DeWanna Bonner like Golden State Warriors forward Brandan Wright (not necessarily in terms of style play, but skinniness). Rudy at one point suggested that Storm guard Tanisha Wright is like the Utah Jazz’s Deron Williams, but I rejected that.
However, what’s interesting is that Pondexter – and Taurasi – seemed to defy comparison. Which is actually an interesting insight because it suggests that the WNBA actually adds something to the basketball universe. Imagine that?
WNBA player versatility
Skills seem to be much more evenly distributed across positions in the WNBA than the NBA, meaning you don’t have post players who have no skill other than being tall and dunking. On the perimeter, multiple players are able to initiate the offense.
And as Shoals mentioned later via email, “a bunch of versatile skilled players is the NBA's wet dream.”
Shoals was alarmed by the fact that 6’5” forward Lauren Jackson was hovering around the three point line and that guards Sue Bird and Tanisha Wright seemed to be splitting the responsibility of initiating the offense. Part of the reason why Rudy made the comparison of Wright to Utah’s point guard Deron Williams is that Wright almost appeared to be the point guard at times because she had the ball in her hands so often.
Taurasi was leading fast breaks, shooting threes, aggressively trying to block shots, and occasionally running the offense. Mercury center Tangela Smith was 4-6 from three point range and Storm center Camille Little hit a three to tie the game at 81 with 44.7 seconds left in regulation. I mentioned that if they watched a team like the Detroit Shock – who really don’t have a traditional distributing point guard – they might have been even more confused.
Shoals is a fan of versatile players and the blurring of positions that seemed to be occurring on both teams actually seemed to be one of the more exciting elements of the game to him. It makes basketball much more fluid and actually makes offenses much more interesting to watch, if you know anything about x’s and o’s.
Yes, males of the lunkhead persuasion will complain about missed layups and lack of dunks, but as Shoals pointed out, overall, few missed shots are actually bad shot attempts. Because there are so many versatile players who can move the ball and find different ways to score, the scoring opportunities created are pretty solid.
This is basketball in which style does not take precedent over substance, but the substantive abilities of the players give the game a style that the NBA aspires to (a “wet dream”)…or once had.
The WNBA as throwback game
It was interesting that Bill Russell was in the crowd because at multiple times throughout the game, Shoals mentioned how the game reminded him of the type of basketball you see in old footage of NBA basketball in the sixties.
“Weird Russell was there, that game reminded me of sixties ball,” he tweeted at one point.
For the uninformed, that is not a slight of the WNBA game – for someone who appreciates the sport of basketball, it’s a complement. In fact, both he and Rudy commented that given the choice between the WNBA and men’s NCAA basketball, they would probably watch a WNBA game. Shoals was quite adamant about this and I’ll leave him to explain that at some other point.
When you have versatile players and offenses predicated on passing and cutting without dunking, you don’t get worse basketball, you get sixties NBA basketball. Shoals noted at one point that even the post players get their points by cutting and being in the right position rather than on the two man isolation game that tends to dominate the NBA. Personally, as someone who appreciates ball movement and fluidity in basketball, that makes the WNBA one of the most appealing syles of play.
Framed in that way, it’s no wonder that someone like Bill Russell “is on record as being a big fan of the WNBA's style of play” as Kevin Pelton noted during the game on his live blog. As Bob Ryan alluded to in his article, “The Game You’re Missing” last year, if you actually know anything about basketball, you almost have to appreciate WNBA basketball.
If you don’t appreciate basketball, just say it… but don’t disrespect a game you know nothing about.
Engrossed to the point of standing during timeouts
In between all of our meta-analysis of basketball as a phenomenon, we did actually pay attention to the game.
Key Arena – and other arenas around the league – have a ritual of standing until the home team makes its first basket.
Rudy liked this – it seemed to add to the collective atmosphere when everyone sat down at the same time after the first shot. Shoals, who nobody could describe as a “joiner”, was initially less enthusiastic, grumbling when I implored him to stand up at the beginning of the game.
However, in overtime, as Shoals and I were standing and chatting about something or other, he stopped mid-sentence and said, “Wait – do we have to stand during timeouts too?”
Why we were standing during a timeout like dunces is beyond me… but that’s beside the point.
The point here is that the game was engaging in a way that just sort of grabs you and forces you to get caught up. Part of that is a direct result of being in Key Arena – it’s just an amazing basketball venue and when the crowd gets going, it’s difficult not to find yourself caught up in a wave of Storm fanaticism.
But a major part of it is that this is just good basketball and true fans of the sport would find a hard time not getting swept up in it.
The other side of the 18-35 year old demographic
Petrel of the Pleasant Dreams blog emailed me yesterday in response to my post about WNBA marketing and reminded me that there really is no monolithic 18-35 year old male demographic. Within that demographic there are people who are non-sports fans or sports fans who are not moved by the idiocy of shock jock sports radio. But more importantly, there might also be a cross-section of that demographic who is able to appreciate the WNBA game simply because it’s good basketball.
The unfortunate reality is that precision ball movement, cutting, and versatility – the strengths of the WNBA game – are simply not conducive to the short attention span clips of Sportscenter that people have become so accustomed to. To appreciate the WNBA, you can’t expect to be wowed by a highlight reel dunk; to appreciate the WNBA, you have to learn to appreciate the nuance of basketball.
And the best way to do that is probably to show up to a game.
Part of Shoals’ infatuation with Bill Russell stems from his interest in having Russel write the intro to his next FreeDarko book, which he is currently doing research for. He’s spent quite a bit reading about the man. Rudy actually went over to Russell and shook his hand, but apparently got no real response from the legend. Just one of millions of hands shaken.
In an attempt to stop over-analyzing basketball, I missed most of the halftime show to go grab a beer. However, Shoals’ girlfriend who was with us, thought the dogs during the halftime show were among the best part of the Key Arena experience.
It’s hard not to admire Tanisha Wright’s game and Patrick Sheehy has a great article on SPMSportsPage profiling Wright. Definitely worth a read. Although I’ve often focused on her offensive abilities, Sheehy does a good job articulating her impact on the defensive end.
I also watched the Los Angeles Sparks’ loss to the San Antonio Silver Stars earlier in the day, a matchup between the Storm’s two previous opponents. Would those games – a triple-overtime win against the Sparks and an overtime win against the Silver Stars – be as effective in swaying NBA fans? I’m not sure… the Mercury’s high-octane style of play is really perfect to entice new fans…we’ll see what Shoals thinks of future games. By the way, down two with four Olympic caliber post players on the floor, why do you settle for a jumper from point guard Kristi Harrower and a three from a frigid cold Tina Thompson…I don’t get it.
Storm Troopers need to remain a prominent part of the Key Arena atmosphere. Here's why: Shoals commented at one point that the refereeing in the WNBA seems to be less invasive than that of the NBA game, making the point that there aren’t quite as many stoppages of play…but I think that was more a function of the Mercury’s style of play. For the most part, their calls were inexplicable. While I don’t complain about the refs often because they make consistently inexplicable calls against both teams, I thought it would have been plenty appropriate for a squad of Storm Troopers to rush the court, capture the refs, and detain them until further notice.
*Note: I'm glad he did that because I was starting to fear for my man-card.
As someone who believes that the WNBA could work a bit on its framing/marketing strategy, I usually enjoy reading these articles just to get some insight on how one might hypothetically pitch the game to men.
As persuasive WNBA writing goes, Bob Ryan’s Boston Globe article from last year entitled “The Game You’re Missing” still strikes me as the gold standard, but I think York makes a pretty good case directly refuting the more prominent arguments people use against the WNBA.
But I usually also enjoy reading these articles for the comments. It truly amazes me that people who claim to hate the WNBA spend so much time and mental energy berating the league with unreflective comments that seem to simultaneously defy basketball logic and common sense.
The most egregious comments are either a) those that use some sort of alternative mathematical system to compare the per game stats from the WNBA (40 minutes) and NBA (48 minutes) OR b) those that suggest lowering the rim. I cannot really decide which is worse.
But what stood out for me in reading the article was York pulling “the True Fan card”. York makes a juxtaposition between liking “flash, showmanship, and dunking” and “good team basketball”. However, that dichotomy doesn't quite set right with me and is often easily dismantled by NBA fans for good reason.
First, even if you look at recent years, the NBA elites actually do play excellent team basketball. That goes for pretty much any team that has played in the NBA Finals coached by Phil Jackson (LA Lakers), Larry Brown (Philadelphia 76ers/Detroit Pistons), or Greg Poppovic (San Antonio Spurs) as well as the 2009 Orlando Magic, the 2000 Indiana Pacers, and just about any Utah Jazz that has ever been coached by Jerry Sloan. Second, when you compare that to watching WNBA players occasionally miss layups, I acknowledge that the “WNBA is more fundamental” argument seems really difficult to grasp.
So to me, that pretty much eviscerates the WNBA is "more fundamental" argument in addition to undermining the True Fan card argument. There might still be room for a WNBA as no-frills basketball argument, but even that is directly challenged by the Spurs and Jazz. Is there a more frill-less man than Jerry Sloan anywhere in U.S. professional basketball?
However, I still think there is merit to the argument that people who dismiss the WNBA without watching it because it lacks “flash, showmanship, and dunking” might not be “true fans”. To elaborate, it might mean that people who dismiss the WNBA on these grounds simply like basketball as another form of entertainment (a pleasurable diversion from daily life), rather than appreciating it as a sport (competition in an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess). Of course sports and entertainment are interconnected, but I would argue that if you’re evaluating a basketball player on dunking ability and style, you’re looking for that person to excite you as a passive consumer rather than trying to appreciate that person’s craft on its own terms as an active observer.
This is not necessarily an evaluative claim suggesting that one is better than the other, it just suggests a distinction between a fan who appreciates basketball as sport and a fan who consumes basketball as entertainment. It is certainly possible to be one without the other or both simultaneously. I would consider myself both. I would consider those that play every weekend but never watch the former. I would consider NBA fans who bash the WNBA as the latter.
All I’m saying is that if you don’t really appreciate the sport for the sport, then own it…and don’t waste time berating the WNBA (or any other sports league) using an entertainment framework. There are probably just better uses of time.
Hateration and the Dark Side of Anti-intellectualism
My favorite WNBA critique actually came from a friend in a late-night discussion over drinks, proof that being overeducated in no way protects someone from turning to the Dark Side of Haterism.
I was talking to a few native Seattlites about whether they would ever root for the Oklahoma City Thunder after the Seattle Sonics relocated there (I have yet to find a Sonics fan who would ever consider rooting for the Thunder and it intrigues me). At some point, a good friend of mine said, “I don’t know much about basketball, but I do know you’re supposed to win. The Sonics never won anything, so I didn’t watch them. We don’t deserve a basketball team.” Note: as Rethinking Basketball is a family site, I have censored the above statements to make them appropriate for all ages.
So I responded, “Well there’s still the Storm. Y’all got a team.”
To which my friend responds, “They don’t count.”
Seriously?
How can a man who just admitted he knows nothing about basketball and really doesn’t care for basketball anyway evaluate the quality or worthiness of a basketball team? It just seems a little inconsistent? There’s no way to even respond to someone who is working from a completely arbitrary place to begin with.
Unfortunately, most comments about the WNBA are just as arbitrary (and blatantly sexist) as the comment above.
So although I admire the attempt to challenge the haters, reading the comments to York's article was just yet another reminder that one simply cannot persuade irrational individuals using rational arguments.
Once one has chosen the anti-intellectual path of haterism– a path that is not only devoid of logic, but also actively contemptuous and dismissive of it – it’s really difficult to change course. Haterism makes listening to well reasoned arguments a burden simply because it threatens the very core of the hater’s identity.
To be fair, I’m sure we are all haters of something. For me it’s the New York Yankees – I’m a Yankee hater for almost no reason at all. I mean, they won a lot (last century) and they have a big cable contract bank rolling their team, but I have no real reason to hate them. I just do -- the soundtrack of my mind instantly switches to the Imperial March any time I hear the word “Yankees”.
And we can all probably discern from personal experience that people who are sipping large quantities of Haterade are probably not really seeking any sort of understanding of that which they are attacking. They do it simply because they are either argumentative, insecure, or simply unintelligent…or (in the case of the WNBA haters) sexist.
We probably shouldn’t expect them to “Expect Great” from the WNBA any more than we should expect a president of a wealthy nation to apologize for an unconstitutional war. Perhaps instead of expending energy trying to convert the mindless minions of the Dark Side, supporters of the WNBA should just maintain clarity about what they're advocating for. For me, that’s an appreciation of basketball as a sport, regardless of who's playing.
To those who don’t appreciate the WNBA as a sport, that’s cool. But is there really any need to disrespect the women who play?
Transition Points:
Perhaps some insight into what it means to be a True Fan lies in the beauty of youth sports. A recent ESPN feature on youth sports by Kenny Mayne:
After building anticipation for something major over the weekend, the WNBA announced yesterday that the Phoenix Mercury will be allowing Lifelock to use their jerseys as human billboards.
The Fanster Phoenix Mercury community blog invited a few of us WNBA bloggers to chime in on a roundtable discussion about the issue along with Kevin Pelton (Seattle Storm/Basketball Prospectus), Greg Esposito (Fanster.com), Alex Chambers (13 Teams, 1 Journey), and Fat Louie (Women's Sports Blog). I enjoyed reading their opinions and recommend taking a look.
The rough consensus: it's a business.
Or maybe that's just what I thought...
I think Pelton makes the best point when he wrote, "In time, however, this is sure to blow over."
I totally agree -- there's a long history of corporate intervention in sport and this is really no different. I'd prefer to have the WNBA around for the long haul than disappear because of fear of taking corporate money. After a while, it would be a waste of time to complain about this.
Sad, I know... but let's get real: cash rules everything around pro sports. Period. Continue reading...
In the meantime, she's certainly using her time wisely -- on Tuesday she visited North High School in Phoenix to promote fitness and nutrition as part of the NBA's Get Fit By Finals program.
In a political climate in which high-stakes testing and accountability have dominanted the national discourse about education, news of Taurasi’s visit is like a breath of fresh air.
While the explicit purpose of the visit was to promote fitness and nutrition, she implicitly promoted a model of good citizenship that is sorely lacking amidst a disastrous financial crisis. And of course, while the adults are busy bickering about vouchers, performance pay, and tweaking standardized tests, the civic and physical development of our youth is often ignored, if not openly dismissed
Adolescent obesity has tripled over the last two decades, so ’it’s never been more important for teenagers to make better food and physical activity choices, according to certified sports dietitian Tara Gidus, RD, a nutrition consultant to the Orlando Magic NBA team. That’s why Get Fit By Finals will call on teens of all activity levels to take simple steps to help improve physical fitness and nutrition – such as being active for at least 60 minutes a day and drinking 3 glasses of lowfat or fat free milk each day.
“Exercise and good nutrition helped me achieve my goal of playing in the NBA and maintaining the high-level of fitness required to stay at the top of my game, “said Taurasi. “Along with other top athletes, fitness and nutrition experts, I’m excited to help teens reach their own personal best and help them Get Fit By Finals.”
Apparently, Tamika Catchings of the Indiana Fever – the 2009 Rev. Charles Williams Award for youth service in Indianapolis -- also visited Cathedral High School in Indianapolis as part of the program.
So what is this Get Fit by Finals program?
And why is it important? Get Fit by Finals
The program is based on the 2008 Federal Physical Activity Guidelines, which were signed back in September by the outgoing Secretary of Health and Human Services (under George W. Bush). Those guidelines include aerobic, muscle-strengthening, and bone-strengthening guidelines for youth, adults, older adults.
North and Cathedral High Schools are two of thousands of schools involved in the program that have received Get Fit activation kits that include NBA sponsored fitness and nutrition tools and tips as well as posters for school cafeterias and gyms. North High School also received a $1000 “got milk?” Get Fit Grant to help them implement health and fitness programs. There is an online “Personal Fitness Tracker” tool as well designed to help students log their progress and journal online.
There is strong evidence that physically active people have better health-related physical fitness and are at lower risk of developing many disabling medical conditions than inactive people.
Prevention is one of my top priorities. Although physical activity is clearly vital to prevention, it is easy for many of us to overlook. These Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans provide achievable steps for youth, adults, and seniors, as well as people with special conditions to live healthier and longer lives.
Although hardly a novel idea, an emphasis on the universal prevention of health problems instead of treatment would be a major step forward in our thinking about health policy. Starting with youth in schools through fitness promotion would theoretically save society money in healthcare down the line, especially for those on government programs.
While it’s great that sports leagues like the NBA and WNBA are doing this work, one would certainly hope that one day we as a country would value the future of our children enough to systematically promote healthy lifestyles as a means of preventing future health problems.
However, in the current economic and political climate, promoting health – not to mention citizenship (which is known to promote school engagement which increases the likelihood one might graduate) – in schools will clearly be a tough sell. Peter Levine writes the following about increasing youth media production in schools as a means of promoting youth civic engagement:
To influence educational policy, I believe we need randomized field experiments that measure the impact of digital media creation on relatively hard measures, such as high school completion or valid and reliable measures of skills.
If such experiments showed positive results, then NCLB and the standards movement that it typifies would provide some leverage. But these laws also create a challenge by focusing on basic literacy and mathematics as measured by pencil-and-paper tests. That focus makes it harder to devote instructional time to media production; media skills are not directly tested, yet what is tested is taught. Nevertheless, NCLB and other current policies could accommodate youth media work if we could show that providing creative opportunities is an efficient way to keep kids engaged in school.
Certainly, if we could find a way to measure the impact of youth media or health promotion programs, it would be easier to influence educational policy.
Of course, the idea of hard science justifying youth development outcomes like skill acquisition or healthy lifestyles – clearly things that are difficult to quantify to begin with – is almost silly to the point of being counter-productive. Even with intensive longitudinal research, one would end up with sketchy and inconclusive data.
What counts as a healthy lifestyle? What about other variables that lead to “health problems” outside of an individual’s control?
At some point, we will just have to decide as a country that health promotion is just important enough to make a leap of faith and promote it on a wide scale.
One question about the program: what type of follow-up support could/will the W/NBA provide to the schools that receive with grants?
I find it absolutely hilarious that Wolverine is also one of the celebrity sponsors in this thing. I mean, if you already have adamantium bound to your skeleton, do you really need milk that much? That just seems like a stretch. ;)
Please note that I’m not putting Taurasi on a pedestal – I actually already did that last year. Regardless she, Catchings, and the WNBA should be commended for their work with this program. Watch though -- I might start the MVDee campaign early this season...
Of course, it’s also worth noting that the whole Get Fit program is ultimately about promoting milk sales:
MilkPEP's 10-person staff manages an annual $90 million integrated marketing budget. In addition to the famous ad campaign, programs like the Milk Mustache Mobile tour and the NBA Get Fit By Finals program generate billions of positive media impressions a year. In-store promotions also give regular boosts to milk sales in retail outlets.
But come on – there are many worse things that the WNBA could be tied to…(e.g. Exxon).
It was a slow WNBA news weekend/early morning...and then Lauren Jackson got signed.
Congrats Storm fans. Good luck to you Mercury.
So anyway, my mind was wandering this morning and started thinking of a potential post for tomorrow...at which point Tevin Campbell and Quincy Jones' song Tomorrow came to mind.
If you don't like this song, you might not like music, childhood, or humanity.
I was an 80's/90's child and my parents were Motown youth, so somehow this song was sort of like a bridge between the two generations that we could both get into.
So as I was reminiscing on childhood, I somehow started thinking how ultimately basketball is just a game. A game that many of us came to in childhood. It's about play, imagination, and celebration. A shame when it becomes about money, celebrity, and the media.
Then later on as I was walking around campus between meetings someone handed me a flier from one of those student groups dedicated to "putting Nike on notice" for their violations on campus (not sure what they are...and I can't make their meetings to get anymore information).
Which made me wonder about the proposal for WNBA corporate sponsorship:
Are there corporations that you would think the WNBA should reject for political reasons?
Or is all financial support equal regardless of the source?
Are there certain partnerships that would undermine the WNBA's claim that they are claiming to empower women, given that many of the labor practices of big corporations disproportionately harm women, particularly minority women, in the process of harming children?
I know it's wrong and devious to make this about the children and childhood -- everybody does that, whether conservative or liberal. Some of these corporate interests directly harm children by destroying families and communities and forcing children into the workforce at the expense of education. And if childhood isn't beautiful and worth protecting, I'm not sure what is.
In fact, the WNBA should take note of this headline -- it could make for a solid marketing campaign...
The sheer speed and flow of the game stunned me. I had run into Laimbeer in Detroit the week before and he had told me he would liken the current WNBA game to the men's game of the early '80s. It's still not being played above the rim, and probably never will be, which doesn't bother me one little bit. So Laimbeer was talking about speed and style of play, absent the dunks. And he was correct.
I realize that no amount of preaching will stir the average lunkhead male to go see a WNBA game. If I thought these people actually knew anything about basketball, I'd say it's their loss.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the Sacramento Kings' Ron Artest and former Kings star Chris Webber doing some commentary during the LA Sparks road victory over the Sacramento Monarchs last night.
I had completely forgotten that Ron Artest was supposed to be doing some color commentary for the Sacramento Monarchs this year. But it seemed like Chris Webber just happened to stop by.
Apparently they switched off between doing television and radio so fans got a healthy dose of both.
So…who was better: Artest or Webber? I liked Webber better, hands down. He was upbeat, cracking jokes, and brought some verve to a game in which the Monarchs just fell apart in the second half.
Webber also did a pretty good job of bringing the player's perspective to the broadcast, which can’t otherwise be gathered from just watching as a fan. And you have to appreciate that – little things about coaching players to do more than “play their height”, working out with Ticha Penicheiro, and how his agent called him about working out with Candace Parker.
“Listen, I watched the first WNBA game that she had…my agent told me that she was good and he said, “You should work out with her”. And I said, I’m not working out with her. But maybe I should have – maybe she would have kept me in the league a little bit longer. She can play.”
Webber also had some interesting endorsements of the WNBA after a beautiful drive and finish by Penicheiro followed by a difficult left handed hook on the block from Candace Parker.
“This is basketball. You know what-- I don’t care-- You have to love sports and these ladies are bad, I’m telling you. The left hand spin jump hook which is hard – which I know professional guys who can’t do that.”
Play-by-play announcer Jim Kozimor later asked Webber for his thoughts on much how NBA players appreciate the WNBA game.
“I’ll tell you the truth – last year I was with the Pistons. And Rasheed and I, we watched all these games and we would talk about how good these girls were. Because actually, I think I got better late in my career because of the lack of my athletic ability. And because some of the ladies maybe cant dunk and just rely on that, it is tougher to make a lay up in traffic than it is to dunk in traffic because you’re over everyone. So the skill factor we believe in this game is much tougher or just the same. So we really respect this game.”
Webber also commented on how much the game is improving, after color commentator Krista Blunk asked about his thoughts on this year's rookie class.
“I think the game is changing. I think these young kids are taking the information and taking the plays that they’ve seen and gone home and just come up with some extraterrestrial type stuff so they are prepared to play. It’s a new game.”
Artest was interesting in that I-have-to-keep-listening-because-he-could-go-off-at-any-moment kind of way. Maybe Artest hasn’t been in front of a mic as often (Webber appeared on TNT a few times during the NBA playoffs), but he just didn’t sound quite as comfortable or engaging as Webber.
In contrast to Webber’s vibrant and playful style, Artest was rather dry. He kept mentioning that Candace Parker is 6'5” and can play. He also made a number of uninspiring comments like, “Sometimes a shot is better than a turnover.” Hmmm…ok.
Artest also needed more prompting from Kozimor and color commentator Krista Blunk, whereas Chris Webber was better at contributing without being prompted to do so.
Of course Artest is clearly excited about being there and he has to get better. Really, he has to.
Maybe their futures in commentating will be decided by their other commitments: while Webber has time to kill in retirement, Artest still has a day job.
Transition points:
- They mentioned during the broadcast that the Monarchs were 2-0 when Artest made an appearance at a game – he did commentary opening night and watched a win in New York. That streak is now over. http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/sports/kings/archives/013226.html
- Why doesn't ex-Indiana Pacer Reggie Miller do some color commentary for the Indiana Fever?
Ex-Chicago Bull Stacey King does the color commentary for the Chicago Sky.
You probably know that his sister and legendary women's basketball player, Cheryl, also does some sideline work for TNT.
So why not?
People say Cheryl was the better basketball player and as of right now, she's the better broadcaster as well.
Honestly, I am just a huge Reggie Miller fan. He was easily one of the best clutch shooters in NBA history. Plus he was a pioneer for skinny players worldwide, which I can appreciate.
So it’s time to reveal my real motivation: I just want to keep his mind off a comeback. It would just ruin his legacy even though he might be able to help a contender get a ring.
Connecticut Sun point guard Lindsay Whalen is certainly not the most athletically gifted player and she doesn’t necessarily even make spectacular plays, and yet she consistently stands out in almost every game she plays, even to fans who can hardly spell her name.
