Thought For The Day - 4 June 2024

You've been following the kerfuffle around Carter and Clark, yes? It seems that the, mostly white and male and (not quite as dominant) straight, sports bloaviators have been busy doing what dey doo. Yes, Dawn Staley runs a thug basketball program. Yes, Carter is one such thug (although not of South Carolina). Yes, I expect Geno to hang up his spurs soon [guess not] because he 100% favors elegant hoops, and I expect he's had enough.

What's truly silly is that the white, male, straight girls' hoops pundits view Clark as the First Great White Hope for the WNBA!! The truth is that Geno has been churning them out for decades. Yes, the WNBA seems more gay than the general population, but who's counting? Breanna Stewart, aka Stewie, was a better player as a rookie than Clark, so far. So, all in all just get over it. What will kill pro girls' hoops is the thug version.

There is precedent, of course. There most always is. Consider the case of the NHL. Two or three decades ago, the old line, "I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out!!", still rang true. Since then, and I don't know the weight of each, the influx of highly skilled (skating and stick) European players and league clamp down on fighting has turned pro hockey into a wonderous sport to watch. Scoring is a bit higher than soccer but much the same structurally, and thus much of the play is pointless, but it is fun to watch, and even the occasional viewer (just the playoffs for me, naturally) can, after a few games, get the trick to goal scoring. As they say, you never know when a defense will break, and the puck screams through the five hole.

If the WNBA continues on the road of 'rivalry' and 'confrontation' and such stupidity (Angel Reese), it becomes little different from Pro Rasstling. The NBA faces the same risk, although without the patina, so far as is commonly known, of LGBTQ. Play a skilled, elegant game and folks will watch. Go the way of Rasstling and only the sub-GED crowd will put it on the teeVee.

And, let us not forget McHale's clothesline of Rambus, and the entirety of Ron Artest. The NBA got over it, at least for a while. It seems to be heading into Rasstling land, as well. Too bad.

Stewart averaged 18.3 points per game, 9.3 rebounds per game and 1.8 blocks per game by the end of the 2016 season.
-- the wiki

[Clark] was awarded the WNBA's Rookie of the Month in May, averaging 17.6 points, 6.6 assists, and 5.1 rebounds per game during that month.
-- the wiki