Basketblogging II
Basic way to find your place in the sports ecology. If your people would leave tomorrow to take an equivalent position in another league, you’re a minor league. Thus, US Major League Soccer, the Arena Football League, NFL Europe. If your people would leave tomorrow to take a lesser position with another league, like now-former WNBA coach Michael Adams just did to become an assistant college coach, your league might not even be minor.
For the record, I tried to be a WNBA fan its first two or three years. Eventually I couldn’t deny that I was watching a lot of bad basketball for my trouble. That saw about how the women’s game is purer “fundamental basketball” in terms of basic skills and teamwork? Twaddle. At least when I stopped watching, the league lacked three point guards who could really handle the ball. Beyond point guards, players would muff basic ball-handling challenges. Catching the simplest entry pass was an adventure in uncertainty. I’m not just talking the famously bad early Mystics teams either, but all the various teams I saw on TB. Even Houston Comets games were like watching a one-legged contestant winning a sack race for paraplegics.
Comment by Ginger Stampley —
April 16, 2005 @ 10:14 am
I went to a couple of Comets games and would have enjoyed going to more. I went with a lot of friends (to get the group rate) and I imagine it’s what going to a minor league baseball game with a big group would have been like.
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The big advantage of the WNBA for me over the NBA was Rockets tickets cost an arm and a leg and I could go with a bunch of friends on a group ticket for what two or three of us would pay for Rockets tickets. It was much more of a family fun/group fun experience than a “must watch basketball” experience. But I’m not a big basketball fan either–I wouldn’t pay the big bucks for Rockets tickets.
Comment by flounder —
April 16, 2005 @ 12:34 pm
Women’s basketball used to be more fundamentally sound. Those late 80’s, early 90’s Virginia teams were really fun to watch. Dawn Staley was one of the best ball handlers I’ve ever seen, male or female.
Once the WNBA started, it got infested with the same 1-on-1, get myself on Sportscenter crap that plagues the men’s game. It’s trickled down to the college level too. I was a huge women’s basketball fan, now I couldn’t tell you who the Final Four were this year.
Trackback by Walter In Denver —
April 16, 2005 @ 2:31 pm
Why Watch?
Jim Henley savages the WNBA: For the record, I tried to be a WNBA fan its first two or three years. Eventually I couldn’t deny that I was watching a lot of bad basketball for my trouble. That saw…
Comment by Jim Henley —
April 16, 2005 @ 6:40 pm
Ginger, I took my niece to a Mystics game and we had a lot of fun. As much fun as one could have watching them blow a close game late, anyway. I think the arena atmosphere can definitely make it worthwhile. And the prices are indeed a lot lower.
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flounder, I dunno, man. The WNBA I was watching was the first couple of seasons, so if Sports Center syndrome set in, it did so awfully quick.
Comment by b-psycho —
April 16, 2005 @ 9:13 pm
I remember awhile back one of my friends explaining the problem with women’s sports by pointing out that women who are good at most sports don’t look like women.
Guess the WNBA explodes that one, huh? Crappy players AND butch-lookin’? Ouch…