WNBA thread… 28.5 ain’t your pay cut

OK. Good talk!

 

Thirty years after I graduated, my dad still says, "Just like Marty," anytime a player drops a great pass or blows a layup after a great pass, referencing our starting center who, from 7th grade through 12th grade, probably cost me, I don't know, 2,500 assists with his awful hands and worse touch. Great guy...awful at catching a ball or making a layup.

I'm still very close with my high school hoops coach. But senior year, big game, two straight times down the court I threw it inside, once to Marty, another time to another post guy, and they both fumbled it and turned it over, though I, of course, got the turnover in the scorebook. During a timeout our coach said, "Stop forcing it inside!" I said, "If they're open I'm throwing it and they gotta catch it." Timeout ends. About 20 seconds later he subs me out and I sat the entire second quarter and then at halftime he chewed my ass for smarting off. I still think I was right! But I also got his point and it's something we joke about today.

A few years later I basically repeated that line when playing on my dad's god-awful company slow-pitch softball team. He played first, I played short and the catcher was always someone who...couldn't catch. During one of our horrible defeats, I fielded a grounder and threw home to try and get a guy running from third. Catcher of course dropped it, run scored and the hitter advanced to second, causing my dad to yell at me, "Don't throw it home!" And I retorted, "He's gotta catch it! Or we can never try and throw someone out?" Luckily dad couldn't bench me.

Thinking about @Alma's discussion of Clark going to Iowa. I've said before how much I love Bueckers, since watching her play in the MN state tourney as an 8th-grader. And I've loved watching her at UConn and think her personality has actually altered Geno's philosophy a bit and had him loosen up. But it would have been amazing if she'd gone to the Gophers and tried to carry that program to new heights. Whalen remains an icon in the state for her run with the Gophers when she dragged them to the Final Four (and her Lynx years of course), even after her disastrous coaching stint. Would have been very cool if Bueckers had gone there and gotten Williams Arena rocking.

 

It's like a damn error in baseball. You should have caught it. Not that hard.

And from what I've seen, many of Clark's "bogus" TOs are passes that are catchable . . . but requires teammates to jump and/or reel the ball in with one hand on the run.

 

If Bueckers goes to Minnesota, she's not buddies with Coco Gauff or whatever. Clark was, in a lot of ways, just another player until late in her junior year. Bueckers was a celebrity from the day she walked onto UConn's campus.

UConn opens a lot of doors, including with ESPN, Team USA and the WNBA. It's like Duke's men, which hasn't won a damn thing in years, or playing for Calipari, who also hasn't won a damn thing in years.

 

Not sure about the bolded part. As a sophomore, Clark led the nation in scoring and assists, was a unanimous first team All-American, and led the Hawkeyes to the regular season and B1G tournament titles.

Her team did get upset in the second round of the NCAA tournament though, so she didn’t get as much national attention as the next two years.

 

Uh-oh.

Sky rookie Reese's season over with wrist injury

 

For one memorable playoff series in 1969 against the Sixers, Red Auerbach was the color guy on the Celtics' telecasts. This was insanely amusing, since he spent most of the tune riding the refs and shouting defensive advice to various Celts. But in between, he said something that has stuck with me for over 50 years. "Ninety percent of the time, a bad pass is due to the guy who was supposed to catch it."

 

No big deal. There are six games left in a season that, at best, would end in two 20-point playoff losses to New York.

 

Here's some more manufactured drama.

Union: WNBA commish missed mark in interview