Curious About Kristi Toliver: Is She the Right Pick For the Sky?

So early on last summer I got really interested in seeing better draft coverage for the WNBA.

I was going to watch college games.

Crunch stats.

Do a WHOLE mock draft.

Then life happened...

I only watched a few games (few with any top prospects).

I didn't even bother with stats (thankfully, the Pleasant Dreams blog did do some last summer, which I find helpful).

Mock draft? Ha!

And then the unthinkable happened -- I was all set to do some cramming for the draft Thursday morning before my 11 o'clock PST meeting. Then the meeting got pushed to 11:30 PST...then 11:45...then I got there at 11:50...and the meeting didn't start until 12:02... in the end, I missed the entire draft....

So now I sit here two days after the draft almost completely clueless about the newest WNBA rookie class and lamenting the fact that I didn't have the guts to cancel the damn meeting ("Um, I'm sorry, but I really have to watch the WNBA draft right now. Can we put off the meeting about the grant proposal due Tuesday? Thanks!").

But what really sucks is looking around for post-draft analysis on the WNBA. Rebkell is probably the best source on the web for any of that (since the most knowledgeable WNBA fans -- knuckleheads notwithstanding -- are writing there). And kudos to WNBAdraft.net and Pleasant Dreams for managing to stay on top of the draft since the summer.

(If I'm missing someone's work please do let me know)

Anyway, what did catch my eye is the choice of my adopted favorite team: the Chicago Sky. I watched quite a few of their games last season and wrote a bit about them and what I thought they needed. So their pick of Kristi Toliver is a really fascinating commentary on what they thought they needed...as well as what they thought they already had.

So here's my tiny contribution to the WNBA draft blogosphere: a very, very surface level analysis of the Sky's first round selection of Kristi Toliver..

Why the Sky Fell...Out of the Playoffs

I'm not on the Sky's staff (obviously) so it's not like I think my assessment of their team is really the final word... but just from feedback I got from Sky fans last season here is what I can say:

1. The Sky never really figured out how to integrate Sylvia Fowles into the offense (despite an amazing Olympic performance) or use Candice Dupree and Fowles together effectively.

2. The Sky struggled in the half-court (click here for more) due to their inability to establish a consistent post game and inability of their guards to penetrate...

3. As a result, I referred to the Sky as a "perimeter-oriented" team because they would resort to passing the ball around the perimeter looking for a shot opportunity as their offense continued to stagnate. But as one Sky fan pointed out, that's probably an incorrect assessment -- they weren't really firing up a lot of perimeter shots and certainly weren't making a lot. Really they just were a team that was not very proficient at creating offense...which sort of circularly leads right back to point #1.

So what were the Sky's needs?

So to me the Sky were set at three positions: center (Fowles), power forward (Dupree), and combo guard.

Strategically, it seems like they needed to get the ball in the post more often and establish a post game in order to open up their perimeter game (moving the ball and forcing the other team to double down or get torched in the paint).

In addition, given the mobility of their bigs -- Fowles and Dupree -- an uptempo game could really help them keep opposing defenses off balance.

What I really thought this team needed to bring it all together was a pure facilitator that could push the ball, see the floor, penetrate in the half court, and distribute the ball to open scorers cutting to the basket or open on the perimeter.

Jia Perkins was much more effective at this than Dominique Canty, Quianna Cheney, or KB Sharp for the second half of last season...but she is still clearly ideal in the role of a combo guard scorer who can be a very good secondary ball handler.

OK so there are two ways I see to look at the Sky's needs:

a) They are so inept at establishing a post game that they should just resign themselves to being a perimeter-oriented team and add another perimeter scorer...

b) They should work to establish a post game because they potentially have one of the best one-two post combos for years to come and therefore should add a pure facilitator to get them the ball....

My choice? B -- find a facilitator and make teams stop the post threats. Their choice? Apparently A.

What Kristi Toliver might tell us about what the Sky are thinking...



Take this with a grain of salt as I have yet to see Toliver play a full game...

From everything I've read about Toliver, the Sky are planning to rely on perimeter scoring. What leads me to believe that? It just seems that Toliver is one of those scoring guards who can pass, but would generally look for her own shot first.

Again, I say that not having seen Toliver. Pleasant Dreams had Toliver ranked as their #3 prospect as of his early season prospect rankings (would be interested to see his updated numbers if he has the time to plug 'em in). So she could be a VERY good scoring guard.

But here's what I don't get -- unless she's a Becky Hammon type guard (who spends a good bit of time off the ball, by the way) is this really the type of point guard the Sky needed to get Fowles and Dupree involved in the offense? Was she really the best point guard available...much less the best player available?

What really troubles me is this list of weaknesses from WNBAdraft.net (points of concern in bold):

Lacks the basketball IQ to manage a pro team (in particular decision-making and knowing personnel); needs work on the defensive end, which stems from being too thin and not strong/quick enough to guard position; shot selection can be horrible at times; shoot first, pass second nature won't always work in the WNBA; handle can get sloppy and can easily be picked off by average college defenders; prone to high turnover numbers, compounding of mistakes, and losing composure (does not hide frustration well); commits bad reach fouls on defense due to lack of defensive fundamentals; lacks creativity in the half court (not a playmaker);

Doesn't a player like that seem like the opposite of what the Sky need? Aren't those the very problems Sky fans suffered through for most of last season?

Sure Toliver could grow as a player, this assessment could be completely off-base (it's almost impossible to predict college to pro success accurately 100% of the time) , and maybe her positives just outweigh the negatives.

I guess I need help seeing how Toliver was the best pick for the Sky. Would Renee Montgomery who was selected just after Toliver have been a better pick? What about the hole at the three position? If they really wanted Toliver that badly, couldn't they have traded down slightly, grabbed Toliver and something else?

In any event, it will be fun this year to keep track of Toliver and the Sky in the context of their bright future. Hopefully this squad can gel together and make some noise in the league this season.

Relevant Links:

WNBA offers female athletes a goal to shoot for
http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=b0fc7377-f3c2-4642-997f-b9d68735afa7


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What the NBA Could Learn From the WNBA: Staying in School FTW

Martin Johnson wrote a nice little piece for TheRoot.com about how the University of North Carolina men's team won the national title primarily on the strength of their upperclassmen...which is further support for the NBA to implement a higher age minimum, as the WNBA has always done. The result could be better basketball:

As a result, the sort of “veteran” teams that we’ve become accustomed to seeing cut down the nets on the first Monday in April, may become the norm throughout the NCAA. Building a winning college basketball program used to be equal parts recruiting talented players and coaching them into a unit. Since the mid-‘90s, it seemed that recruiting had begun to take on a dominant share. With the recent title teams and coming changes in the NBA, those veteran teams will become the standard across the board. When they do, the upsets that once characterized this tournament will return.

The response from women's basketball fans: uh, duh....

No matter what critiques one might have about women's basketball this is something that it has right already -- their players stay longer and it makes for the development of great teams rather than the fleeting excitement of great individual performances.

Nevertheless, I often go back and forth on this age minimum issue (especially when considering Darnellia Russell's situation), but you can't deny the results: as a fan, it makes for better basketball during one of the premiere basketball events in the U.S. -- March Madness. How can you argue with that?

So I wonder, having just witnessed March Madness and now looking forward to the draft, does anyone really believe that the WNBA should loosen their age minimum? If so, how?

I'm honestly soliciting thoughts on this rather than purporting to have something new to say about the issue... but I will just rehash some of the age-old arguments for the sake of discussion...

The Phenom Factor

I would call you foolish without reservation if you said that LeBron James was not ready to go pro. Ditto for Greg Oden...Kevin Durant...the list goes on. The latest in that line of players who has absolutely nothing further to gain from college basketball is clearly Blake Griffin, who announced that he's making the jump to the NBA yesterday.

So would the WNBA cave or bend their age requirement with a player like Brittney Griner coming through the pipeline...or having already watched Maya Moore play around with college kids all season?

Clearly players like Chamique Holdsclaw and Candace Parker have argued that staying in school was a good decision...so I don't know how much clamoring for a change there really is. And honestly, if Parker and Holdsclaw are ok with it, there aren't really many other college players in the world who should have a problem with it.

But is it fair to confine a player of Griner's obvious talent to the NCAA?

Why the Phenom Factor *Should* Not Matter for the WNBA?

People love stories.

Plenty of people have done research on that... but really, I think we can all agree on that.

Women's basketball needs a narrative that will "legitimize" it to people who have doubts, draw them in, and keep them coming back.

Those narratives should start by watching the players develop a college legacy -- from the recruitment stages, to the growing pains of losing in the early years, to winning championships in their later years. It gives us something to hold on to. Something to look forward to...and builds upon long-standing college allegiances to build pro allegiances.

Furthermore, it goes back to developing a narrative about what a female athlete *is* before even trying to move forward with marketing a professional women's game. We have to shift the narrative of what it means to be a female athlete if we really want to see women's sports take off in this country.

So then...

Why Not Scrap the Age Minimum and Start Creating Those Narratives With Younger Players?

Simple answer (to the completely absurd hypothetical question I've made up to set up the rest of my post): It's just plain silly to send messages about a glamorous career in sports to kids who have not even lived away from their guardians yet. In fact, it borders on irresponsible, reprehensible, immoral.

OK... strong words... (perhaps you can tell the recruiting industry bothers me).

But when I see stories about sixth grade phenoms who are ranked as a member of next decade's recruiting class, I almost want to vomit. I mean wasn't there a great movie documenting how corrupting these elusive Hoop Dreams can be on players, family members, and coaches? Was that not convincing enough? Why do we continue to want to perpetuate this cycle of setting kids up to be crushed?

And though the NBA can not be held responsible for some opportunistic wanna-be who feels the need to make a living ranking sixth graders in basketball, part of what keeps this insane recruiting industry sinking to new lows is the large amounts of money in the promised land at the top, in the NBA. The easier it is to get to that promised land -- meaning you don't have to pretend to take four years of classes seriously -- the easier it will be to legitimize the idea that someone should be tracking kids as early as sixth grade. So although I don't blame the NBA (or the NY Times) for creating this basketball mythology, I think that sending a message from the top that there is more to life than basketball (*gasp*...I can't even believe I wrote that) is valuable.

So I will come to a tentative conclusion about the WNBA age requirement: if women's basketball wants to avoid this race to the bottom of convincing kids who still watch Saturday Morning cartoons that "Basketball is Life" then the age requirement is one way to keep things in perspective. This is a game, kids should enjoy as a game, and hopefully continue to see it as a ticket to getting a top flight education rather than a gambling on the fragility of a professional basketball career.

I reserve the right to change my mind tomorrow... ;)

Transition Points:

For anyone who really wanted to Free Brittney Griner from the horrific tyranny of a college education, then consider the Brandon Jennings plan -- go play in Europe and get your money until you're eligible to play pro in the U.S. Call me crazy, but I happen to think Griner made the right decision by choosing education... but how long before a female baller decides she's better off bolting to Europe for a few years?

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What Difference a Year Makes: Why Ahistorical Analyses of Sport Perpetuate Misrepresentations of the WNBA

If you pay attention to women's basketball, you've probably heard about that March ESPN the Magazine article that included a cover photo of a pregnant Parker.

Of course, this led to some commentary about the state of the WNBA, female athletes, and marketing. The WNBA even made a good move by posting an interview with the editor of ESPN the Mag to get some insight into the thinking behind the article. But there were two articles in the last week or so that really caught my eye.

Of course, there weren't really any new arguments added to the discussion... really just people rehashing the same old arguments in new packaging.

However, the big difference this time around is that given all the media attention given to Parker and the Olympics last year, speaking from a place self-imposed ignorance about the WNBA no longer carries much credibility. Parker's arrival on the national (and international) sports scene last summer was one of those special moments in sports history that even the below-average lunkhead male would have had a hard time just ignoring. This does not mean we suddenly have a whole lot of enlightened, gender-conscious WNBA commentary...it's just a new sort of ignorance I guess...

So that's progress, right? Maybe people are watching and now making "grounded" critiques of women's sport? Eh...partially. What really bothers me is how people insist upon accounting for the WNBA's struggles by scrutinizing the athletes rather than thinking through the business of sport. What we end up getting is these analyses that exist within an historical vacuum and lead to conclusions that don't really add up when you try to re-situate them in reality.

Call me crazy, but I just happen to like arguments that are based on some form of real evidence... so here are some of the thoughts I jotted down.

Framing is Everything

First, before jumping on the easy critique bandwagon, ESPN the Mag should be applauded for putting a female athlete on their cover in the off-season. It is not necessarily unprecedented, but let's admit it's rare, especially for team sport athletes.

Second, I think getting to know these athletes as people is a valuable endeavor, so the ESPN article was good in that respect as well.

So the positives aside, what has obviously attracted attention about the article is the discussion of Parker's cup size in the opening paragraph.

Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum of critique of that opening paragraph, I think it's the perfect time to ask a question: beyond WNBA.com's question of what was the thought process behind putting Parker on the cover, I wonder what was the thought process behind how they would present Parker to the world.

So going back to the issue of getting to know the athletes, here's what I think we have to consider: if Parker herself brought up this issue of cup size, then it's not so much a question of a sexist double standard to mention it -- it occurred in the interaction and is therefore something worth accounting for in the description. My question is why frame the article by sexualizing Parker given that this is a sexist society? Couldn't that have waited for a few paragraphs?

Editor-in-Chief Gary Belsky claimed in the WNBA.com interview that they put Parker on the cover because she ESPN the Mag "...is a magazine that makes its living by predicting the future and looking forward." OK, fair enough. But wouldn't it have been neat to start looking forward by trying to shift the way we think about female athletes rather than going through the same routine of interpolating them through a beauty standard?

Rather than looking forward to a time when we appreciate female athletes for being female athletes, the framing of the article simply reinforced the way we already see female athletes. But it's almost as if even in the process of trying to move forward in representing female athletes, we get tripped up by the same old narrative.

We can't blame ESPN the Mag for that -- I don't think anyone has the "right" language to talk about female athletes yet. But at the very least, we need to work to find ways to anticipate the consequences of certain framing decisions and work to mitigate them. Where better to start than our professional wordsmiths? I'll look forward to seeing what ESPN the Mag does the next time a female basketball player graces their cover...and hopefully we won't have to wait too long.

Framing Sets the Stage for How We Discuss Women's Sports

So anyway, moving beyond the context of the ESPN the Mag article, here's another problem with how we discuss women's sports: since we don't really have a good way of discussing or understanding female athletes without blatantly objectifying them, we instead try to compare them to male athletes.

I think I've ranted about the tendency to compare female athletes to male athletes before, so I won't go deep into it. But I think this tendency along with our lack of familiarity with seeing female athletes in the public eye leads to these strange ahistorical arguments.

There was a March 31st article in an Illinois State school newspaper (ok, I know... I'm not going to expect too much from a student newspaper) with the headline, "There's no stopping it...men's sports are better than women's sports". The author claims to be taking a balanced approach to understanding why women's sports -- like the WNBA -- are struggling by essentially saying the following:

It is not that people do not want to watch a sporting event that showcases all women, it is that people would rather spend more time watching (who they by and large consider to be) the best.

It is not that people do not want to watch a sporting event that showcases all women, it is that people would rather spend more time watching (who they by and large consider to be) the best.

Next, it is the level of difficulty. Many people watch sports to see spectacular plays that they could never actually perform themselves. This typically happens more frequently in the men's game.

Whether it is basketball, football, baseball, etc., people want to be entertained, and a "highlight reel" play has a greater chance of happening at a men's game.

Women's sports, while also performed at a proportionately high level, tend to place a much greater focus on the fundamentals of its game (or at least that is what is advertised).

So while execution may, in fact, be equal to or possibly greater in the women's game than the men's, it can become boring. And the major networks cannot afford to televise boring.

Then in the next paragraph he presents an argument that I find quite important:

Brand loyalty is also a major reason behind the masses preferring one game over the other. Although, both the men and women played their first official game in the same year (1892), their major league equivalents (NBA and WNBA) saw the men's game evolve into a televised program long before the women. So to expect fan and media coverage to drastically even out, even though the WNBA did not start until 1996, seems a bit unreasonable.

So here's the contradiction and the reason I think situating these arguments historically helps a little.

Essentially his argument is as follows:

People like to watch the best play a given sport.

People like to watch the best because they make spectacular plays.

Men are more likely to make spectacular plays than women.

Women are comparatively boring and therefore difficult to market before they're boring.

But then he acknowledges that the WNBA has only been around since 1996...exactly 50 years after the NBA (founded in July 1946). If we buy his argumentation, we might be led to the assume that people immediately took to the NBA because it was spectacular. But that's not true at all.

If you look closely at the development of the NBA (or the NFL...or NHL for that matter) the trend is much different than that. In the beginning, people thought the NBA would never compete with more popular sports like boxing (yes, boxing!) and baseball. Once the NBA got past that initial hurdle of becoming a viable sport, it hit a slump again in the 70's which some people associate with an increase in black players along with owner corruption. It wasn't until the Bird-Magic rivalry of the 80's that the NBA really took off.

So why is this important to consider? There was a time when the idea of professional basketball being marketable was laughable. There was a time when the idea of black professional basketball players was laughable. It's not like people watch sports purely because they are spectacular. By most accounts, the ABA definitely had the NBA beat in the "spectacular" category. In the end, it comes down to people buying into the narrative a sport presents.

Until we find ways of presenting legitimate narratives about female athletes and female team sports, they will continue to remain unmarketable because people are simply too steeped in thing about women as sex objects. The NBA found gold by doing two things: 1) embracing the good fortune of having a bi-coastal, bi-racial rivalry between Bird-Magic and 2) deciding to market individuals rather than teams. People connect with stories. They talk about stories. And they get addicted to stories. It just so happens that the stories that work best are those that resonate with people's existing sensibilities...not ones that challenge their pre-existing ways of thinking about the world. That's quite a hurdle for women's basketball to overcome...

"The Pimping of Candace Parker"

So given the need to create new narratives, can we blame "Team Parker" and the WNBA for going along with this ESPN the Mag story...especially prior to knowing that Parker's C cup would take on a prominent role? I say no.

There was a pretty good article at the Bleacher Report last week with the headline "The Pimping of Candace Parker". In it, the author claims the following:

This transitions to the second point—women's sports are "foreign." It can be seen as different or foreign from men's sports. Trying to sell the WNBA to men who are used to seeing rim-rattling dunks, no-look passes, ankle-breaking crossovers, and backboard-pinned blocks is similar to attempts at sell soccer to the football-crazed United States.

Agreed. But then he concludes with the following:

However, the selling of these leagues are doomed to failed thanks in part to the difficulties in expanding its audience to include a male demographic who have a hard time buying women as athletes or their leagues as comparable to male leagues.

The desperation to sell women's professional athletics in the United States must resort to the unfortunate pimping of its talented (and beautiful) athletes, such as Candace Parker. Unfortunately, there are not enough Johns out there to buy the product.

For the record, I agree with most of what the author says... but I think the conclusion could be refined. Both male and female athletes are "pimped". The difference is that within the definition of masculinity is included some notion of physical prowess and dominance. That simply does not yet exist within the "feminine mystique" that most people have bought into.

It would be hard to establish that Michael Jordan as "basketball player" is not intimately tied to our implicit understandings of Michael Jordan as "male". He's a physical specimen and dominated the NBA for years.

The difference is that within the context of society we understand these as unproblematic attributes of maleness. The challenge then is not to sell women as athletes separate from their gender but to learn how to include "female athlete" within our entrenched understandings of femininity. That is going to take time and conscious effort on the part of those who write about and frame news about female athletes.

It's not a failure of the athletes. It's not necessarily a failure of the WNBA in the way they're "pimping" their athletes. It's a matter of finding a way to integrate the narrative of a given sport within the epic social narratives we've already accepted. That will be harder for women's sports because we as a society do not yet accept women as athletes. But we cannot pretend that anybody has ever accepted a professional sport purely on its "merit" of being "spectacular".

The problem the WNBA faces has as much to do with sexism as it does with the fact the we have become a hyper-consumerist society that buys in order to establish and reinforce our sense of self. Instead of continuing to make arguments about whether women are spectacular enough to be accepted as athletes -- meaning we would need more Parker-types who can dunk -- I think we need to start thinking about developing a language that helps us embrace athlete within our notions of femininity.

And perhaps that will allow us to find other ways to frame articles about female athletes other than discussing their cup size...

Update: Responses to this post from other blogs

New Rethinking Basketball Post
http://atlantadreamblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-rethinking-basketball-post.html

On Ginobili's Injury and Candace Parker's League
http://fruithoopz.blogspot.com/2009/04/on-ginobilis-injury-and-candace-parkers.html

Relevant Links:

Female Athletes: Be pretty, but not sexy. Or pregnant.
http://contexts.org/socimages/2009/04/21/female-athletes-be-pretty-but-not-sexy-or-pregnant/

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Michelle Obama, Lisa Leslie...and Clair Huxtable.

How cool is it that Lisa Leslie was invited to stand with Michelle Obama in inspiring black girls in DC's predominately black Anacostia High School to reach their potential as leaders?

This is not necessarily important in terms of pure basketball news, but I think once again highlights the political importance of the WNBA.

Way back in the 80's, Clair Huxtable (aka Phylicia Rashad) was easily one of the most prominent black female role models in the mainstream. She was damn near perfect -- a brilliant lawyer, who didn't take anything from her husband, and simultaneously managed to keep the household together despite Cliff's aloofness...

While I fully recognize the harm of the black superwoman image in pop culture, Clair also represented a "black career woman", something I would argue society still struggles to comprehend today. Although the Cosby show was not perfect -- it was clearly more of a black middle class fantasy than a representation of how much progress the "average" black family was -- and Clair sets up these ridiculous expectations for what it means to be a successful black female professional, Clair Huxtable was as important a figure as any in pop culture.

This is what makes Michelle Obama so important -- the mainstream no longer has to draw upon fantasy to find images of strong, intelligent, black women who do not define themselves by their families, even if they choose to take care of them.

So when I saw that Michelle Obama, Phylicia Rashad, and Lisa Leslie -- among others -- have come together to encourage young girls in the predominately black DC public schools to see themselves as leaders -- however they may choose to do so -- I was even more enamored with Michelle as a black public figure. She has fully embraced this role as a public figure role model and making a huge statement in her willingness to connect DC's local issues to a broader national agenda.

The significance of this event is not only that Michelle Obama is a relatively powerful black woman using her position to make a statement, but also that she would even visit Anacostia High School, a "failing school" in DC that most national politicians would just ignore...and really aren't expected to do anything beyond that.

How many even first ladies (or presidents for that matter) even know where Anacostia High School is way down there at the end of the green line, let alone are willing to go? Even for the leftists out there who see Mr. Obama as too centrist for their liking, this represents a powerful commitment to doing something different while occupying the White House.

But what's more is the group of black women she assembled for this event:

The group included Grammy Award-winning singers Alicia Keyes and Sheryl Crow, actresses and sisters Debbie Allen and Phylicia Rashad, actress Fran Drescher, Olympic gymnast Dominique Dawes, WNBA star Lisa Leslie Lockwood and Mae Jemison, the first black woman to travel into space. Also participating were Gen. Ann Dunwoody, the first woman to achieve the four-star rank; actresses Alfre Woodard, Kerry Washington and Tracee Ellis Ross; and Debra Lee, president and CEO of the parent company of the BET cable network.

She didn't just grab political friends, or doctors, or entertainers, but is communicating a clear message that there are multiple ways to be a successful black woman.

Lisa Leslie's involvement is what caught my eye and her willingness to embrace her role as a black female role model is also impressive. However, when we put her in broader context of this group Michelle Obama has assembled, I think we understand a bit better how important the WNBA is in the context of women's history month; it's not just about equitable access to professional athletics in society, but part of a broader movement in shifting how we see black womanhood in this country.

So while the message of individual responsibility and hard work is problematic and I know as well as anyone that speaking engagements will likely not end up changing DC Public Schools, I applaud Obama, Leslie, Rashad, et al. for making this effort. And I am particularly impressed by Obama's recognition of herself within a historical continuum of black women who push to expand the boundaries of black womanhood.

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Should the NCAA Slash the Women's Tournament to 40 Teams?

Once the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament starts tomorrow, March Madness will be in full swing.

Of course, if you ask the "average lunkhead male" about that, they would probably tell you that in fact March Madness was in full swing as of yesterday when the Men's tournament started.

But not so if you believe Martin Johnson who writes for The Root.com.

If you accept Johnson's claim that the women's tournament is easily the third best college sporting event behind the men's tournament (definitely best in all of sports) and college football (despite the ridiculous BCS system), then March Madness isn't truly in full swing until we get the men and women going.

So if we start with that premise, then why shorten the field as Johnson suggests?

While the games are worthwhile to the devotees of the sport, they don’t recruit casual fans by commandeering their attention to drama....the women’s tournament would do itself a favor by slashing the field to 40 teams. The top two seeded teams in each of the four regionals would get a bye into the round of 16, and the other 32 teams would play on Saturday through Tuesday for the right to join them at the regional round. A smaller championship tournament would heighten the drama of the regular season and the conference tournaments. The bye weeks would make top seeds even that much more valuable, and the first round would feature more quality matchups. In other words, there would be much more drama that is accessible to the average sports fan in the preliminaries of the tournament, and it would ramp up an even larger audience for the big events down the road.

I don't read this as slamming the women's tournament as much as an argument for how to increase the game's popularity among the average lunkhead males out there: showcase the best and the fans will pay attention.

Do I agree? Not sure... I see the argument. I was also talking with a friend the other day about the idea of changing the men's tournament with a little round robin system instead of the current brackets because it's entirely too long... don't know if I like that really either.

Bottom line is this: March Madness is the most exciting sporting times of the year and the women get no pub... would Johnson's suggestion change that?

Transition Points:

Haven't posted in a while, but something that's caught my eye is the state of black coaches in women's collegiate basketball. Of particular interest to me is ex-WNBA'er Tia Jackson who coached the University of Washington Huskies team to a last place finish in the Pac-10. The question of whether she'll be ousted keeps coming up...and whether she deserves to be, I think it brings up an issue worth discussing -- why are there so few black female coaches in NCAA women's basketball?

My picks for the tournament this year: On the men's side I have to pick with a caveat -- if Ty Lawson's foot doesn't prevent him from playing, I go with UNC. If not, Louisville. On the women's side...Maya Moore...'nuff said.

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The Cost of Equity: How Will Title IX Ever Overcome the Football Problem?

In an attempt to actually keep my promise of posting once a week, I'm gonna post a little something that caught my eye a few days ago.

Normally, I would just leave Title IX stuff to the Title IX blog... but this story was so interesting to me because the discourse around these decisions to cut costs in an economic downturn is fascinating (for lack of a better word) to me.

In an article describing Arizona State's decision to drop it's men's wrestling and swimming teams, I found the following quote that made me stop in my tracks:

Arizona State men’s swimming coach Mike Chasson is the latest victim of this numbers crunch.

“I think Title IX has been incredibly important, but basically it gives universities an excuse to drop men’s sports,” said Chasson, who also coaches the women’s team. “That’s the bottom line.”

I feel for Chasson here. I understand that it must suck to have lost his team. But what I find interesting about this type of discourse is it pretends that men are under attack when what is really happening here is the correcting of long standing inequality in sport.

There's really no need to belabor this point -- it's been made over and over again. However, as long as men feel entitled to their sports even at the expense of women's sports, we're going to have a huge problem navigating the politics of Title IX...unless of course this was addressed at the level of federal oversight... by a new administration...

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Return from the “Glades of Gafia”

It’s been a long time, but I’m back from the "Glades of Gafia" and ready to re-engage the WNBA world.

I’ve thought about writing regularly again for a while, but something hit me the other day that lit a fire under me and pushed me to finally sit down and do so (read on to find out). Not the daily madness that consumed my life this past WNBA season… maybe weekly. But certainly more than every six months.

I’ve actually got a ton of story ideas scattered around my desktop and in my email that I just didn’t post, so in the next few weeks you’ll be seeing some of those: an update on Darnellia Russell, a response to a few anti-WNBA articles around the web, and (since it’s the off-season) other random sports-related thoughts I might have. In other words, I didn’t abandon the WNBA…I just took a break.

WHY you may ask did I take a break? And why am I gonna get writing again?

Gafia is not an exotic vacation spot… though that would have been nice (see the Pleasant Dreams blog for an explanation of this concept). But a brief synopsis of my own personal Gafia follows. The top 5 reasons I took a break and the top 5 reasons I’m returning to action.


Top 5 Reasons I Took a Break

5. WNBA News is Scarce: Blogging about the WNBA requires me to find news about the WNBA. During the WNBA off-season, news is just plain scarce. I will be the first to confess I didn’t put quite the work in that say Pet does over at the Pleasant Dreams blog…but still…it’s tough in the off-season.

4. The NBA: My first love is NBA basketball. Once that started up, the WNBA just fell off the radar for me. That’s fair, right? It’s the WNBA off-season. And with the dawn of a new NBA season comes the chance the fortunes for my favorite NBA team might change – with each new season there’s a chance, albeit minute, that my beloved Golden State Warriors will break out of their eternal slumber and make some noise in the NBA.

That dream has been shattered for weeks now…so my cognitive load has thus decreased.

3. Graduate school: I returned to graduate school in the fall. In graduate school they make you read a lot. And when I was reading all this crazy theory stuff, it was kinda hard to continue focusing on WNBA basketball, especially considering reason #5 above. One thing you do a lot of in grad school is write and use a lot of unnecessarily big words. Just doesn’t fit well with blogging about sports…

2. I moved: Due to going back to grad school, I moved. This is what caused the initial interruption way back when around WNBA finals time. I spent weeks on a friends inflatable mattress before finding a place. During that time, the WNBA – already in full off-season form – was just the furthest thing from my mind. A stronger man may have made it work…I just couldn’t

1. Health Problems: Won’t go into it, but I had some health problems over the last few months. With all that happened – the move, re-adjusting to grad school, etc – the blogging was just a casualty. But now things are better, I’m back in the swing of things, and ready to go at it again…so…

Top 5 Reasons I’m returning

5. I met another blogger: I met another sports blogger this past weekend. We were talking about basketball, I checked out his blog, things were pretty cool. And after we parted ways I thought to myself, “Damn, blogging about basketball is kinda fun.” It’s not about money (I don’t make any from this) or fame (WNBA players don’t get fame, why would a blogger?) it’s just fun to interact with people about basketball. Basketball is life. There’s nothing better. (See Bill Walton’s foreward in the Tao of the Jumpshot)

4. The Warriors suck: They just do. I don’t think I have to go into that. But you know what…I will.

If you’ve followed NBA basketball for the last 20 years at all you know the Warriors suck. If you haven’t followed them for the last 20 years you can infer that they suck – you probably haven’t heard of them or have any idea where Golden State is. Why would you?

Let’s put it this way to make it relevant to the WNBA: the Warriors are the NBA’s Washington Mystics – they are totally mismanaged, their personnel transactions often defy logic, and just when you think they might get better or they actually make the playoffs, players leave. They suck. But I’ve been a fan my entire life. I have fond memories of watching David Wood, Todd Fuller, the disaster that was Mike Dunleavy, and the tragic loss of Gilbert Arenas. So I don’t abandon them until they really piss me off. They accomplished that this season. I’m done till the draft…at which point they will inevitably botch the pick (although they NAILED it this season with Anthony Randolph…not that they play him or anything). If you ever want to hear more about my frustration with that franchise just write… I won’t take up any further space with them for now.

(I should clarify what I mean by "done" – it means I still watch with great disdain for the franchise)

3. I like writing: I was never especially good at writing at school, but I just like to write. I’m better in email than in person, better on IM than phone, and better on blog than radio (which I have briefly tried in my lifetime). I don’t know why I like it… but it’s fun. It’s relaxing. It’s a chance to get all the tangled up thoughts in my mind out in the open and thus understand them better. Grad school only serves to complicate and tangle up thoughts. Basketball is therefore the key to liberation…or something like it.

2. March Madness: March is coming up which means I’ll probably get a chance to watch a few of the top draft prospects on TV. Nothing like watching a player live to put the stats in perspective. Last summer, I lamented the lack of coverage on WNBA prospects…then I proceeded to “gafiate” (that is just such a cool word). Anyway, in the coming weeks I will take a look at players when I can and see what I think.

1. I have a favorite team: I definitely have a favorite team this season. And therefore, the upcoming summer has me excited. I will try my hardest not to abandon this team. And stick with them for a full season. But it’s much easier to follow a sport when you got a team to follow. I’m sure you can figure out what team that is…

OK…so now you know a little bit more about me and what makes me tick. Or maybe you don’t know that much more – in the end, it all comes down to basketball.

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Here's hoping for a Sparks-Liberty Finals

Unfortunately, life has gotten in the way of me writing and I've been unable to pay attention to the WNBA playoffs as much as I'd like.

But I have to just stop for a moment and say that I'm hoping for a Liberty-Sparks finals. The reason is simple: I've really enjoyed their two matchups this season.

This is not to disregard the chances of the Silver Stars or Shock, both very good teams and deserving of a trip to the finals by virtue of outstanding regular season performances. But thinking about the Sparks trying to contain Leilani Mitchell in the open court again and the Liberty trying to contain Candace Parker is exciting to me. I could see it being a tight series with each team fighting to establish their style.

Speaking of the rookies, how about the play of rookies this post-season? Obviously Parker, but Essence Carson and Crystal Kelly in the first round. Rookies are not just "stepping up" but they're leading their teams to victory. Putting the future of the league on center stage is yet another reason to hope for a Liberty-Sparks final...

Yeah, I know I'm getting ahead of myself a bit, but hopefully by Finals time things will have settled down a bit in my life and I'll be able to actually pay closer attention.

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Any Ideas On What Happened to the Sun?

I actually missed the Sun-Liberty game yesterday...but apparently I didn't miss much.

This description from Mike DiMauro of The Day makes the game seem horrific...

The Sun's loss to New York inside The Big Room on 33rd and 7th was well deserved. No team that treats the ball like a live explosive, especially 35 games into a season, should be leading a playoff series.

Their offense was disheveled. They did not honor basketball's No. 1 rule: treasure possession of the ball. There was enough one-on-one offense to qualify for the schoolyard. Terrible shots. Worse shots than that. Forced shots with the shot clock in single digits. Passes to nowhere. Not nearly enough ball movement.

You wonder how. How does a team that looked so good two weeks ago, a team Seattle coach Brian's Agler and San Antonio coach Dan Hughes raved about recently, look so putrid?

Ouch.

The thing is, this seems reminiscent of their losing streak earlier in the season when they just didn't seem to have it together.

For the sake of a competitive opening round series, I hope they get it together. For the sake of the Liberty's chances, I'm kinda hoping they remain stuck in first gear...

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The Playoffs Are Here!

Finally...the playoffs.

I was thinking of doing some sort of playoff preview, but then I decided that I would just take in the games and enjoy the best time of any sports season. Because of that, and the fact that life is starting to get in the way of writing, I'm probably going to write less during the playoffs, unless something happens that I just have to write down.

So no playoff preview analysis from me... but Kevin Pelton had a really nice analysis comparing this year's playoff teams to teams of the past. It's an interesting way to look at the playoffs and the results definitely pass the laugh test.

Here's his description:

Obviously, this analysis can't take into account midseason trades or injuries which tend to skew a team's performance when we look at the entire season. Still, I think there's some benefit to seeing which styles have historically been successful in the WNBA Playoffs. For each team, I've reported the average playoff score of their 10 most similar teams, the number of finalists and championships amongst this group and the most comparable team and its playoff outcome.

Check it out...and then enjoy the playoffs!

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Does Depth Really Matter For the Playoffs?

I saw an interesting article from last week about how Plennette Pierson's return gives the Shock depth and versatility as they head to the playoffs.

But while the main theme of the article is the importance of depth, it's also clear that versatility and balance count. From the article:

Rather than drafting and signing players merely for depth’s sake, Laimbeer, assistant coach Rick Mahorn and director of player personnel Cheryl Reeve identified backups that would http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifcomplement the starters’ strengths. They also found a bona fide backup for each starter, a departure from previous seasons when subs like Pierson and Johnson covered multiple positions.

Although it seems that people generally assume that depth is a good thing, this example from Detroit tells us that depth might not be as important as having a balanced and versatile rotation.

Conversely, the Storm have succeeded during the end of the season despite lacking depth...and health. In fact, they've been almost entirely reliant on Sue Bird during the second half of the season. Their lack of depth was on full display in Sunday's match-up of benches against the Sparks as both teams rested their starters. And certainly the Sparks are no model of depth, not to mention balance.

But without depth, the Storm have remained successful by focusing on the little things like defense and rebounding, according to Sue Bird.

"The reason we've been able to play so well is the system that we have," Bird said. "We rely almost entirely on our defense. No matter who's in the game, you can always play tough defense; you can always control the boards. That's really what keeps us in games and allows us to have opportunities to win."

So as teams head into the playoffs, how important is depth? And is there a way to concretely understand the value of depth as we look at the eight playoff teams' chances at success?

David Sparks from the Arbitrarian column at Hardwood Paroxysm has already explored this question for NBA teams and came up with an interesting result -- statistically, there's a negative relationship between depth and team success. Huh? How does that work?

Well he sent me the numbers for the WNBA today and I think once we actually understand how he's defining depth and look at which teams are considered deep, it starts to make sense. And perhaps starts to illuminate why certain teams succeed despite lacking depth.

Understanding depth and rotation size

Part of understanding the value of depth is understanding the difference between depth and rotation size. Sparks describes it as follows:

Depth and rotation are not necessarily the same. Since there must be five players on the court per team at all times, the theoretical minimum for rotation size is five, which you would see if a team played only five players, all game, every game. However, depth concerns not playing time, but production, and it is easy to imagine one of those five players contributing more than 20% of the team's total production, while one or more of the others produces less than their share. (There is a metric, called the Valuable Contributions Ratio, which I use to measure players' productive contributions relative to their floor time.)

If each player produced in proportion to their allocation of minutes, it would make no difference which players were on the floor, but obviously this is not the case. Rather, better players produce a greater proportion of their team's production than their proportion of a team's minutes played. This implies, of course, that a team's rotation size will likely not be the same as its productive depth, and further, that depth will likely be smaller than rotation.

I think this is an important distinction because at least in the NBA conventional wisdom is that teams should shorten their rotations for the playoffs. So if we believe that the small rotation strategy works, then perhaps the key is having a "deep rotation" -- a rotation with as many productive players as possible, independent of how long it is.

Both rotation and depth size are measured by concentration of minutes/production or how well minutes or production are distributed among players (described in depth here). Here's Sparks' NBA example:

In the first game, Indiana played only six players in total. Of those six players, five played more than 40 minutes, and the sixth played 15. The Herfindahl Index of concentration for this game is a very high 0.18.

In the second game, 12 players saw 12 or more minutes, with the most playing time being 23 minutes, which is less than half of a game. As you might expect, the Herfindahl Index is much lower here (the index increases with concentration), just 0.09.

The third game sees Minnesota employ 14 players in their quest to defeat Houston. Based on this alone, you might expect even less concentration than in the Sacramento game. However, the distribution of minutes here is much less uniform than above. Seven players saw over 20 minutes of action, the other seven saw less then ten minutes, and four of these had almost negligible floor time. As a result the Herfindahl Index is somewhere between the two games above, at 0.12.

A high concentration number means a few players played/produced. Lower numbers mean less players played/produced. He then translated these numbers into reasonable looking rotation sizes.

Let's look at the numbers.

Team-by-team depth and rotation numbers

(Playoff teams in bold.)

Team Depth and Rotation
Team	Rotation	Depth
Atlanta Dream	10.95	9.87
Chicago Sky	9.09	6.82
Connecticut Sun	10.07	7.75
Detroit Shock	9.55	8.27
Houston Comets	9.96	8.58
Indiana Fever	8.65	7.32
Los Angeles Sparks	9.52	5.88
Minnesota Lynx	9.70	8.10
New York Liberty	10.17	8.94
Phoenix Mercury	8.89	6.65
Sacramento Monarchs	10.05	8.40
San Antonio Silver Stars	8.13	6.39
Seattle Storm	9.50	8.21
Washington Mystics	9.58	7.35

The first thing I notice is that the statistical depth of a team does not seem to have much bearing on a team's success. Of the five teams with the least statistical depth, three are playoff teams (Los Angeles, San Antonio, and Indiana). The team with the most depth was the expansion Atlanta Dream.

So what if anything can we conclude from this?

When looking at the Sparks and Silver Stars -- both of which have little depth -- you could conclude that it's superstars that matter more than depth, balance, and all the other stuff. But then you look at teams like Detroit and Seattle with average depth (when healthy) and an average rotation and conclude that balance is the key.

As it turns out, the top three teams in the West would seem to support the superstar theory -- none of them is heading into the playoffs with a lot of depth, once you take Seattle's injuries into account. Will that hurt when they face the East with more depth? If San Antonio's regular season success is any indication, depth is not the problem -- having a balanced set of stars might just be more important.

And for the Sparks? They might prove the same theory if they fall short of a championship -- stars without balance are not very effective.

I don't have the time for it now, but perhaps it would be fruitful to take a look at the interaction of depth and SPI playing styles to see if certain combinations within a rotation are more valuable than just having depth for depth's sake.

Anyway, it will be exciting to see how this plays out in the playoffs.

Transition Points:

Another way to look at depth is by Boxscores -- Sparks sent me the updated Boxscores graphic for the season as well. Take a look at the Sparks -- 3 players consume most of the production. That production equals the production of exactly 5 Liberty players and almost five Detroit players if you can visualize the image without Cheryl Ford.



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My Choice for MVP: Diana Taurasi

So this MVP question has been looming for weeks and I think my favorite candidate has been clear for some time: Diana Taurasi.

Although the Mercury did not make the playoffs, missed making .500, and were not one of the top 8 teams in the league, I think a convincing argument can be made for Taurasi, with both statistics and observation.

As a refresher, here's my criteria for the MVP in the form of questions:

1. Can the player be relied upon to have a positive influence on the game when they’re on the floor?
2. Can they create their own offense when the team needs it?
3. Do they use possessions effectively?
4. Can they be used multiple ways on the floor to adjust to match ups?
5. To what extent do they help their team win games?

As a twist, I only evaluated my selections for the All-WNBA team...and the ever-popular Becky Hammon. The outcome was similar in the top 3, but Taurasi pulled away from Young in this one. Let's see why.

First, a change to the process

I also changed the "Boxscore differential" piece after a brief email exchange with David Sparks. He came up with a new way to calculate player contributions to team success called Marginal Victories Produced. The formula is as follows:

Player percent valuable contributions * (team total points/(team total points + opponent total points)) * team total games played

What you get in that equation is the percentage of point production that can be attributed to an individual player. Is it skewed to base production only on points? Yes and no. Yes because obviously there's other things an offense does. But no because, hey -- points win games AND it takes defense into account by incorporating opponent total points. So it says something about how much a player's contributions contributed to actual production.

Anyway, on to the numbers.

The Numbers

PLUS/MINUS  PLAYER +/-  Sue Bird 15.3  Sophia Young 13.4  Deanna Nolan 10.7  Seimone Augustus 10.5  Asjha Jones 10.4  Candace Parker 9.6  Janel McCarville 7.8  Diana Taurasi 7.5

USAGE RATE  PLAYER USAGE  Diana Taurasi 29.49%  Asjha Jones 27.70%  Becky Hammon 26.92%  Sophia Young 26.29%  Lisa Leslie 25.37%  Seimone Augustus 25.15%   Candace Parker 24.62%  Janel McCarville 24.34%

PTS/ZERO POINT POSS.  PLAYER PTS/0 PT. POSS.  Diana Taurasi 2.61  Sophia Young 2.54  Janel McCarville 2.50  Seimone Augustus 2.49  Lindsay Whalen 2.41  Candace Parker 2.40  Asjha Jones 2.27  Deanna Nolan 2.16

BOXSCORE DIFF.  PLAYER MVP  Diana Taurasi 5.10  Asjha Jones 5.07  Candace Parker 5.00  Lindsay Whalen 4.70  Becky Hammon 4.18  Sophia Young 4.14  Seimone Augustus 3.77  Janel McCarville 3.76

SPI VERS.  PLAYER SPI VERS.  Candace Parker 293.65  Lisa Leslie 271.27  Diana Taurasi 270.53  Deanna Nolan 227.88  Lindsay Whalen 224.63  Sophia Young 224.07  Asjha Jones 219.45  Becky Hammon 206.11

What about defense?

I do think defense is important to consider for the MVP and I suggested a way to evaluate defense statistically the other week. But the problem is a player's defensive value is so difficult to quantify even with a number of statistics.

In the Mercury-Shock game on ESPN the other day, they were talking about Katie Smith's defense so I watched her the whole game. She does an amazing job defensively just because she's so strong. But it doesn't show up in the stats at all. And there are countless other players like that.

So given the difficulty of coming up with a way to assess defense and the fact that I'm already using plus/minus and MVP as proxies for overall contribution, I'll forgo the use of independent defensive stats for now.

My five picks

TOP FIVE
PLAYER	TOTAL
Diana Taurasi	46
Sophia Young	40
Candace Parker	37
Asjha Jones	37
Seimone Augustus	30

A narrative defense for MVDee

Statistically, what we see is that Taurasi has the ability to win games for her team (MVP), heavily relied upon to produce with the ball in her hands (usage), is extremely versatile, and does all of that efficiently (pts/zero pt. poss.). That she does all of that with another Olympian on the team is even more impressive.

Then there's just the fact that Taurasi is flat out spectacular at times. She fills the stat sheet. She makes big plays. She makes you say, "Wow." As for the fact that the team did not win much, we have to remember that the team was built with Taurasi, Cappie Pondexter, and Penny Taylor in mind. With Taylor out all season and then Tangela Smith out down the stretch, you could say that the reason they missed the playoffs is that they were missing 2 key contributors. That should not influence our assessment of Taurasi's performance -- she still carried that team and had them in the playoff race until the last week of the season. That alone is impressive.

In comparison, Parker is more versatile but less efficient and less relied upon by her team. It's not a bad thing, but for me it's sufficient reason to go for Taurasi instead of Parker, despite the Sparks' better team performance.

The point guard problem

However, there is (at least) one problem with these metrics. As I've said before, most of these statistics are not favorable for point guards and those that do favor point guards disadvantage everyone else. So Bird came in last and Whalen came in 8th. Most people would have them higher on their MVP lists.

Here's my way of rationalizing it -- in Bird's case, I would say that while she's been great all season, she didn't really turn it on until Jackson left. In fact, she was in a horrible shooting slump for the first third of the season. The award is given for a season's worth of work, so I think there are just stronger candidates this year.

As for Whalen, I think she is truly disadvantaged by this system because she's a player who focuses on running the system rather than collecting big stats. But she also plays with Jones who is a very strong MVP candidate as well. What surprises me though is Whalen's low plus/minus rating -- +2.8 -- compared to Jones' -- +10.4. Since plus/minus is the strongest non-box score stat we have for the WNBA, it's important and it's a little surprising she doesn't rank higher. It was also somewhat interesting to see the Sun win two games without Whalen...that certainly hurt her MVP chances.

Because we can't watch all of the games, I stand by the notion that statistics are helpful in evaluating MVP candidates, despite a few quirks. With or without statistics, Taurasi would be my pick this year. Hopefully next year she'll give us a repeat performance and take the award without any caveats...if not for that perky Parker...


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My All-WNBA Teams

Well the season is almost complete and now it's time to hand out those post season awards before the playoffs. I'll start with All-WNBA teams because I haven't done those before...and they will get me a step closer to figuring out my MVP candidates.

When I look back at the past All-WNBA teams I don't see any positional requirements so this is truly my top 10 players from the season, plus an honorable mention third team.

I'm going to use statistics to justify, but not determine, my choices. I'd be interested in seeing other people's picks and their justifications as well. The three statistics I looked at were Model Estimated Value, plus/minus, and efficiency rating. Rather than going strictly by the rankings, I just used these to sort out who deserved to make the cut.

** The plus/minus numbers used here are from games through September 7th.

All-WNBA Second Team

Deanna Nolan

There should be no doubt that Nolan deserves All-WNBA recognition. Even though I'm not a big fan of the Shock, I really enjoy watching Nolan play. She's one of those players that goes about the game in an almost business-like fashion just doing what she has to do to help her team win, whether that be scoring or distributing the ball.

She didn't put up particularly gaudy statistics this season -- statistically, Jia Perkins had a better season. But she was right within range of the top players in every category. One thing does stand out however -- she shot 46% from the field. That's phenomenal for a guard who takes as many contested jump shots as Nolan does.

The reason I put Nolan on my team is that I don't think you can disregard the intangibles she brings to the Shock in terms of leadership and consistency. It comes down to this question -- if it comes down to one shot at the end of the game, who am I going to trust with the ball? Nolan can create her own shot off the dribble from anywhere on the court, make smart decisions with the ball, and make the right pass if she can't get off a shot.

Janel McCarville

As I've written before, it's hard not to like McCarville's game. She's tough inside, she's smart, and she's shown the ability to face up her defender and take her to the basket. She ranked 9th in MEV and 9th in efficiency rating which pretty much sealed the deal for me. She's also consistently been one of the best defensive post players statistically.

What I like best about her though is her passing ability. Having a post player that can make good decisions with the ball and be a central element of the offense is a huge asset. She's first among centers in assists per 40 minutes which means she is doing a relatively good job of finding others from the post. And again, you can't disregard the intangibles -- the fire and passion she brings to the court has been invaluable on a number of occasions. She's just a great player.

Sue Bird

For all the talk about her late season rise, she's consistently been at the top of the plus/minus rankings all season. And with Lauren Jackson out after the Olympic break she just picked it up a notch. Through last week, her plus/minus rating was +20.7.

Bird is a combo guard in the true sense of the word who can easily shift between scoring and distributing depending on what her team needs. It's been impressive to see how well she made the switch from a pure distributor to a scorer in Lauren Jackson's absence.

She could easily be the most dominant player in the league with her skill set, but instead chooses to pick her spots and make her teammates better. Perhaps Jackson's injury was just a nice little reminder of just how good she is.

Ashja Jones

The best way to describe Jones: dominant post player. She has an array of post moves and seems to score almost any way she chooses to. She had the 7th highest plus/minus rating and the 9th highest efficiency rating.

I didn't really take notice of Jones till the second half of the season, possibly because I was always so focused on Lindsay Whalen. But while Whalen has been described as the engine that makes the team go by Mike Thibault, it's quite clear to me that they would not be where they are without Jones.

Lisa Leslie

Leslie is in my mind the Defensive Player of the Year. She anchors LA's defense which has been one of the best in the league all year and when she leaves the game there's a noticeable difference. But she's also been huge offensively combining with Candace Parker to create a deadly high-low post game.

Statistically, she was 8th in MEV ratings and 4th in efficiency rating. It's hard to keep her off the first team, but there are so many great players there, that Leslie fell to second

All-WNBA First Team

Lindsay Whalen

If it weren't for Sue Bird's second half performance, Whalen would be by far the best point guard in the WNBA this season. She does everything -- she can score, distribute, rebound, and plays the angles so well that she's hard to stop. Like Bird, she tends to spend a lot of time trying to set up teammates which makes her appear passive, but as a point guard, that's a valuable asset.

In terms of the numbers, she's 4th in MEV and 5th in efficiency, making her the most productive point guard in the league. In my opinion, she could be putting up better numbers but in Connecticut's system individual performance seems to be subordinated to team performance so she often just comes down the court and gets her team into the offense rather than trying to immediately make a play. Like Bird though, it's not a bad thing -- she just has the ability to shift from a distributor to scorer whenever she needs to do so.

Seimone Augustus

She's a scorer who seems to be able to get to wherever she wants on the court. Any shooting guard who can score 19 points per game on 47% shooting is impressive. And like Nolan, those are mostly contested jump shots.

But what's most impressive is that for a player who is such a volume scorer, she can also defend and make her teammates better. Her plus/minus rating of +18.4 is second only to Sue Bird. She also ranks 10th in efficiency rating and 12th in MEV. She's quickly becoming one of the best all-around players in the league.

Sophia Young

Easily one of my top MVP candidates, she's a player who gets the job done quietly, but does so as one of the most efficient and productive players in the league. She ranks high in MEV, plus/minus, and efficiency rating. She's an athletic inside-out post threat who can also defend well, although she's occasionally giving up a few inches to her opponent. It's difficult not to like what Young has done this season really.

Diana Taurasi

Love her game. I have already written about why I think she's arguably the best player in the league here.

Candace Parker

Duh.

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"Forever Opti-Mystic": When Will the Mystics Rise Above Mediocrity?

Like I wrote about the Sky yesterday, the Mystics didn't have much to play for against the Sun except pride.

And like the Sky, they lost to a playoff team that was missing two MVP caliber starters. In other words, the Mystics lost to the Sun's bench as the Basketcases pointed out. That's not exactly an encouraging way to head into the last game of the season for a lottery-bound team.

Which begs the question: how far away is this team for success?

One of the commentators during yesterday's game mentioned a poster a fan made that read "Forever Opti-Mystic". Which I find impressive...because I haven't been.

I have a secret -- when the WNBA first started I lived in the DC area and the Mystics were my team. Or rather, Nikki McCray was my favorite women's basketball player. I liked everything about her -- her game, her off-court personality, and at the time I thought she'd be a star. Then when they got Holdsclaw I thought it was a done deal -- the Mystics were destined for a championship.

Wrong.

Of course, as the Mystics only continued to wallow in mediocrity, not only did my interest in the team fade, but my interest in the entire league faded. Everything just seemed, well, predictable and by extension, boring. The Comets seemed destined to win every year and the Mystics couldn't even win with Holdsclaw and McCray. And when the Mystics traded McCray what little interest was left disappeared entirely (I can't even remember what year that was without looking, but I remember rolling my eyes when it happened).

I was crushed. And it took me years to even bother watching the WNBA again ("Expect Great" actually worked on me. I realized I had to let go of the mediocrity I experienced in DC). I write all this to say that from my perspective as a born-again WNBA fan, it seems like the only constants in the league's history have been Tina Thompson and the Washington Mystics (I could be wrong about that and I'm sure someone will correct me).

So it's not just a matter of how far from success this team is but moreso how much time it will take to change from a culture of mediocrity to a culture of success -- just bad enough to miss the playoffs but just good enough to miss out on the highest draft picks. And most of those draft picks just haven't panned out.

So watching yesterday loss to the Sun was a painful reminder of a frustrating past -- how does this team finally get over the hump? After reading a Rebkell thread about it, I have to say I agree with most of the posters there: trade Beard.

All signs point to change

I said before Welcome Back Week that I thought the end of the season for the Mystics would be interesting to watch. It was a(nother) key turning point for the franchise after trading Taj McWilliams-Franklin for Tasha Humphrey while in the middle of a playoff race.

Well, all they've done after the break is go 0 for 7. Not particularly encouraging. And when I see comments like the following from Alana Beard, you have to wonder if their star longs for greener pastures:

"[The Sun] have a great coaching staff," Mystics' guard Alana Beard said. "They get the most out of their players. They have a good bench, too. The players accept and play their roles."

One Mystics fan, CC, has sent me a few emails regarding whether the Mystics should trade Beard and although I think they could build around her, it seems tempting to just move her and continue cleaning house. CC wrote the following via email:

As the fate of DC is unknown, and with so many other factors involved, I both hope she is traded to a more successful team and will return to her 2006 level. Yes,I agree trade of first Melvin, then Milton-Jones' and Teasley's loss were intrinsic to DC performance this year,also.

CC echoes the sentiment of many on Rebkell who have also suggested trading Beard and cleaning house. As long as the team is going to struggle, they might as well bring in some new blood to energize fans.

So what direction should they move in?

I'm honestly at a loss on this one because really, they're not yet close enough to any standard of success to suggest one direction. The key is that everyone from the owner down to the 12th player on the bench needs to commit to a direction, something like Connecticut has done.

The fact that Connecticut beat the Mystics with their bench playing major minutes speaks volumes about Connecticut's team building strategy. They have built a system that functions even without their stars. Nobody expected them to be at the top of the Eastern Conference this year, but there they are with home court advantage.

That seems like a good way for the Mystics to start to me -- establish a system, find players who fit the system, and build slowly toward a cohesive unit. It might not result in instant success, but at least fans might feel like the team is building toward something rather than floating around in the abyss of mediocrity. And perhaps that will help the fair weather male fans like me stick around for a little bit longer.

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