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I never thought I would write this and be sincere about it, but WNBA players are more skilled, competitive, entertaining, admirable, and worth watching than NBA players. My hunch is you don’t believe me, but if you have been watching WNBA games these past few months you would resonate with what I’m saying.
These women shoot a higher percentage overall from the outside and the foul line. It’s stunning how many of them stick long-range shots – and it’s not just Caitlin Clark. Every team has several players who are borderline lethal from 20-25 away, and you won’t find nearly as many NBA teams and players who are as accurate as these women.
For this reason alone, they are more admirable and worth watching because you only become a great shooter by non-stop repetition, and practicing like all the time – and I admire that so much. Working hard to get better is laudable and deserving of respect.
To get better it’s obvious to me these women, collectively, spend many more hours and take many more practice shots than the men. Far too many in the NBA clank bricks; you can tell they don’t work much on becoming better shooters; they rely on flashing dunks too much. You don’t see that weakness in WNBA players. If you leave them open from the outside, there’s a good chance it’s going in.
It doesn’t seem like it would be this way with the NBA being a much more popular sport, at least historically, but it’s the truth. I’m not saying all NBA players are unskilled; it’s a general comparison between the two leagues that I believe is true – and remarkable.
From the foul line, it’s the same story. Women are extremely accurate – much more so than the NBA men. I don’t have all the statistics but just watching there’s clearly a difference in favor of women.
WNBA players are also highly skilled at not just shooting but rebounding, dribbling, and passing, whereas there are plenty of NBA players who have natural athletic ability and size but can’t shoot, dribble or pass as well.
The explanation must have something to do with how girls are trained and coached while growing up compared with boys. Plus they exude a stronger will and discipline to put in the hours practicing the skills. They earn their way below NBA salaries and many NBA players don’t.
I wonder if this is consistent with the overall trend in which more women are going to and graduating from college than men. A Pew Research study found that young women are more likely to go to college than men, and women 25 years and older are more likely to have a four-year college degree. These statistics are consistent with widespread concern that men in general are dropping out of the workforce and essentially losing ground against women in academic and career pursuits.
NBA players aren’t caught up in this battle competing to excel as much as women. As a group, they’re less dedicated, disciplined, and motivated. It also seems to me the women play with much more urgency as if each game they’re playing to keep their jobs, and they need the paychecks that are so much lower than the NBA players. They’re in survival mode; the men take games off and the regular season seems like a lackadaisical pick-up game.
NBA players take advantage of “load management,” which means they take several games off because they’re tired. There’s none of that in the WNBA. This is interesting; the higher-paid employers don’t work as hard as the ones paid a lot less. Which group do you admire more? I thought so.
This matters from a business standpoint. Because I’m so impressed with the skills of the women, I plan to watch more WNBA games in the future and less NBA. I believe there are thousands or millions of men like me who have recently started watching the WNBA and are likely to reach the same conclusion. Goodness for the WNBA and a bad omen for the NBA.
Add to this the WNBA tunnel where the women strut in before each game in snazzy outfits. It’s highly entertaining. I think what we have going on is one league on a fast rise and another either stagnant or in decline – and certainly less compelling. The NBA could start playing up the tunnel fashion show to attract more eyeballs but that’s not going to entice me or most men. They prefer the WNBA fashion strut. Plus male hoops fans respect the harder workers.
So we’re reaching a tipping point in professional basketball. The women’s game is played with more skill and intensity, and they have a much more appealing tunnel show, and they have a transformational phenom named Caitlin Clark pulling in more fans than the league has ever had – by huge numbers.
The number of viewers of her games has been higher than NBA playoff games. The fact that this is true is almost unbelievable when you think about historical viewing trends dating back decades with NBA viewership so much higher.
Profound changes are clearly happening. Who could have seen this coming as recently as a year ago? Pretty much no one. What was needed was Clark, a dazzling long-range bomber, to get more people watching, and when they did they found out the WNBA is a more entertaining product than the NBA.
For so long no one seemed to know this. For so long it wasn’t even a topic of discussion.
But not any longer.
On a widespread basis, we are witnessing the rise of women and the downfall of men.
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Sammy Sportface, a sports blogger, galvanizes, inspires, and amuses The Baby Boomer Brotherhood. And you can learn about his vision and join this group's Facebook page here:
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