Rec’ing on…My WNBA All-Decade Peeves

In this tenth year of the WNBA, there has been much to praise about the players and the league. What about those things that just tick you off? Here’s my list:

The 24-second Clock — I know that they only instituted it this season, but it’s been around internationally for a while now. I didn’t like it before the WNBA started using it, and I’m liking it even less now. Yeah, scoring is up and teams are much more offense-minded…but that isn’t

all there is to the game. What about defense? Those teams that could stymie an opponent despite a deliberate attack for 30-seconds…that was impressive. What’s that you say? Defense is boring? I vehemently disagree. Defense is just as exciting as offense.

Now, the game is changed. The shorter clock has pushed all of the teams to adopt similar run-and-gun styles. The variety of the league has been sacrificed for homogeneity. Before this change you had deliberate teams, and you had running teams, and various incarnations in the middle. Oh, the nostalgia. As time goes on, I fear the “schooled in the fundamentals” aspect of the women’s game that is so touted will disappear just as it has in the men’s game—all for the sake of the god of high scores. Now THAT’S boring.

Possessive Countries — Whenever there is a World Championship or an Olympics in a year, many of the countries that supply players to the WNBA send out this edict: you will come home and practice with your national team during the WNBA season, otherwise you will not get to play. Some players buck this command and live to play anyway…but these few (Lauren Jackson, Penny Taylor, Elena Baronova, etc.) are so good at what they do, even resentful national team coaches can’t refuse them a spot on the squad. But then you get players who could help both their teams, but are hampered because of politics (e.g. Maria Stepanova).

You know, I might not mind this if the tactic actually worked. But it doesn’t. To this point, the winner of the gold medals has been the USA—and the members of that team certainly don’t play as a unit all summer long. In fact, I think it can be well argued that the face-up experience of having to play against the US players is a bigger advantage to international teams than not. I think that they not only hurt the talent pool of the WNBA, but themselves as well.

As an appendix to this peeve, I’d also add that FIBA doesn’t help with their scheduling. While innocence is proclaimed, it does appear to be a definite bias against WNBA/USA basketball.

Inconsistent Refereeing — It’s a season-after-season complaint: the refereeing during games is inconsistent, and sometimes just plain bad. I’ve ref’d intramural games in my time, and even that amateur experience gave me a lot of respect for how tough a job it is. Even so, I think that it shouldn’t be that hard to be consistent. Some crews “let the players play” while others call very tight games. It’s on those occasion when they are somewhere in the middle that people comment on how you didn’t notice the refs were there.

Overall, I think my biggest peeve with the refs is the anticipation whistle. One player goes for a shot, the other for a block, and the whistle is blown at the moment (or a little before, even) the expected foul takes place. This happens whether the arm, the ball, or the hand-is-part-of-the-ball is touched. I really, really hate this call.

The Jump-stop — There once was a time when picking up your dribble and letting more than one foot touch the ground on the way to the basket was considered traveling. The worst non-call in basketball is the two-footed jump-stop-shot. I’m sorry…that’s traveling. Just because the NBA refs let Shaq get away with it doesn’t make it right. They need to stop it. (Though, it needs to be clear, the step-through actually is perfectly fine…not the European step, but the step-through.)

The Uniforms — Since the league began, I don’t think the unis have quite matched the caliber of the athletes. The WNBA made a good move in narrowing the shoulders into more of a tank configuration, but I’m not sure they narrowed them quite enough (a lot of players still roll them around their SBs); even so, they bombed out with the bottom-hemmed untucked look. That just comes off as sloppy.

Then there’s the shorts. I personally have a problem with the baggy/flouncey shorts that have infected basketball. While I don’t shout for a return to the tight short-shorts of the 70s, I do think some loss of fabric is in order. I advocate a mid-thigh cut (sufficient to cover most compression shorts) with a cut that is fitted but by no means tight. Oh yeah, and have the waist fit well enough so that the shorts’ and player’s crotchs come in reasonable proximity of each other.

Put this combination of (tucked) top and shorts together, and you have a stylish and totally practical uniform.

Unqualified Coaches — While I do point a decided finger at male coaches who are appointed simply because of their affiliation with the NBA owners of WNBA teams—coaches who don’t know the women’s game beyond maybe hearing of some of the names, and/or who haven’t actually coached anything approaching college, WNBA or even D-league level—there have also been a fair number of female coaches who shouldn’t have been in that position, either. The fact of the matter is that the people who coach in the WNBA should not only be qualified, but have the knowledge and respect for the league to want to stay with it and not treat it as a stop on the way to something else, or as simply as a way to kill some time during the summer.

Yes, there is a cry about the lack of women coaches. I complain about that, too, but I’d just as soon have a qualified coach regardless of gender. I think that there are enough assistants who have proven their commitment to the league to start drawing from their ranks.

Sponsors — Not to alienate the sponsors who have shown the foresight and good taste to support the WNBA, but could we have a larger variety of commercials? Since the league started it seems that we only get four original commercials a season (if that). And they get played over-and-over-and-over. Come on guys, some variety, please.

Albuquerque — This is more of a personal peeve than a league peeve. Several years ago I was a part of a group trying to get a WNBA team into Albuquerque. It seemed the time was good for expansion (Chicago got the nod a year or so later), and we had good momentum and intereste…but it just never quite managed to gel to that last necessary degree. Oh well. It would have been nice.

Fair-weather fans — You know who I mean…the casual fans who only go to games because their team is one of the best in the league. These are the ones who filter away when the team hits a rough patch, and don’t bother to show up again until the team is championship caliber. More than anything, the declining attendance comes from these folks (it’s certainly not the ticket price…shoot, I pay more for college women’s games).

Free Agency — The worst thing to happen in sports has been free agency. While I agree that the old contract system was awful for players, at least teams could build a dynasty. Of course, without free-agency, those teams at the bottom couldn’t get the players to do that. In the interest of increasing parity (and to keep players from striking), free-agency was born. I have to admit that the WNBA has done a much better job of it than about any other sports league that I know of, I still feel there is room for improvement.

A major annoyance is when teams lose loyal players to free-agency simply because they bump against the salary cap. The goal of the league is to make sure that no one organization, simply by virtue of deep pockets, can buy a championship team. While this a laudable, it breaks because of the salary cap and player min/max pay schedules. I think that if a player wants to stay with a team, and the team wants them, they should be able to without penalty or reward. If they want to go, then I think the current system works adequately.

And there you have it. Ten of my WNBA peeves. Do you have some? Share. Share.