Women. Can't Live With'em and They Can't Pee Standing Up

Let me preface this piece by saying that I am not doing this to bring down women’s sports, but rather point out ways that they need to be improved to be on the closer to the same playing field as men.


Women’s basketball has potential to be a decent product, but is not. The problem with women’s basketball is that they try to pretend they are the same as men. They are not. It is not their fault, nature made males bigger stronger and faster. That is not the issue. The issue is that basketball was designed with men in mind, like baseball. Women’s basketball needs to create a “softball” of basketball, like baseball has. Softball (fastpitch) is mildly entertaining because it is competitive, and because nobody is thinking about how much better a guy could do it, because the sports are unique enough for comparisons to be useless.

The WNBA needs to lower the hoops, so that cool dunks are possible, nothing radical, maybe to 9 and a half feet so alley oops become a factor. They also should consider something else to make their sport unique to the NBA, maybe a 4 point line?? (Side note- this would finally give Antoine Walker what he wants this was a real interview)—

(Reporter) – “Antoine, you are shooting 25% from three this year, why do you still shoot them?”
(Antoine) – “I shoot 3’s cuz there ain’t any 4’s”

Other ideas about the gameplay itself would be one possession per team per game with a money ball, like in a 3 pt contest, that would make points double. This way, teams would not be out of games at the end as easily, and it would add extra coaching strategy. I think this would make the games watchable, for me. Imagine an 8 pointer, with these two rule changes implemented!
The above may never happen, because people deeply involved in the WNBA don’t seem to be able to fathom why nobody cares about their season, so I have a much more reasonable solution. Teams get regional priority for players from those colleges. (1 pick per year) Think about it. Imagine if Lindsay Whalen played for the Lynx after the fan base she had from her gopher playing days. People might actually care about that team. I know that the competitive balance might be shifted with this rule, but the alternative of no league at all is a worse fate in my opinion.

The WNBA has a chance to revolutionize a sport, out of pure desperation. If I was commissioner of the WNBA it would be more like a St. Paul Saints experience. The Saints know people don’t really care a whole lot about the team itself, and that it is just entertainment. –side note- best Saint Paul Saints line ever is when a foul ball leaves the stadium straight behind home plate- “dyslexic home run” gets me every time…

If you still aren’t convinced that this major overhaul needs to happen, look at this clip of a recent Elite 8 game, of the Arizona State coach attempting (I use this term very liberally here) to motivate her team. Take a look, go ahead, I’ll wait…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PasQSgOXEQ

“You’re not so bad!” and “We just played like poop” have got to be the 2 single worst halftime speech lines ever. I’m sorry, but I can’t take a sport seriously right now that has people in the game that would dare use “poop” in an inspirational sentence, I just can’t do it. Sometimes vulgarity has its place. This may have been one of those times. It may have gotten a fire in their belly, rather than making everyone feel more awkward/nauseated/ashamed of their existence than the warden in Shawshank Redemption after Andy is discovered missing.

The WNBA has got to man up (poor choice of words?) and admit their product in inferior, and quit pretending it’s not. They are not the NBA. If they simply follow my advice they would have at least double their current fan base, guaranteed. What do they have to lose?