She's been called a once-in-a-lifetime female player. I've watched some of Baylor's games this year, and she definitely looks like a completely different breed of player out there.... she's been controversially referred to as like a "man playing against women", and it's hard to disagree. Do any of you think that she could compete against NBA players? Should a team take a leap and invite her to training camp?
Fuck no. She is 6'8", so right away she is a tweener with really poor athletic ability for the NBA. Basically she is the same size as Nicolas Batum. Do you think she could keep up with him? I don't. She would almost have to play PF, where she would get the shit beat out of her by guys like Craig Smith. Not to mention the ball they use in women's basketball is smaller than the NBA ball. I think I told this story on the old site, but forever ago when Portland had the Portland Power, which was pre WNBA, there was a player named Natalie Williams who won a gold medal in the Olympics for women's basketball. I worked as a sales manager for Thomason auto dealerships and delivered a Mustang for a promotion, several times. Anywho, as time went on I got more comfortable and would shoot a bit on the floor with some of the players in pre game shootarounds. I ended up going one on one with Natalie to 5 and beat her 5-3. I played high school basketball and won a state championship, but I am nowhere near good enough for major college basketball much less the NBA. Griner is better than Williams, but the NBA players are 10,000 better than me. Just saying....
I doubt she could hang, but I would still like to see her get an invite to a camp, perhaps she could surprise us, and he has played well enough to deserve an honest shot. However, I think that the only position that I can really see a female being able to make it in the NBA is at PG. There have been many PG's (Nash for example) who have been able to thrive in the NBA based mostly on skill and not on athletic ability.
I remember Ann Meyers getting a look from the Pacers back in the 80's. She was cut after 3 days of training camp.
She would be the only female basketball player that I think could have done well in the NBA. She played SG, so I think yes.
You may not mean it thusly, but it's really insulting to call Griner a man playing among women. She is a superstar college woman playing against other college women. She'll be a superstar pro playing among very good pros. It's like, if you're really really good, you have to be "a man". Although she is 6'8", if you look at her, she's strong but quite slender. Look at the men of that height in the NBA and they are much broader through the shoulders and much heavier overall. So she'd have trouble in a game situation not getting pushed around. That is not to say she is an inferior player; but in basketball size and weight does count. A slender light man who was very tall would have trouble as well (think Shawn Bradley). I think a woman could compete in baseball, for example, where short and slender players have done extremely well - think 5'9" Rickey Henderson. In a game of HORSE, I think the women could compete with the men. A shooting competition without someone who outweighs by 50 lb shoving them. I will bet she'll have a better pro career than Felton. Or, sadly, Oden. But she still has another year of college eligibility and plans to return for her senior season. You could say, without any argument, that the women are better educated; nearly all complete 4 years. A rarity among men.
Honest question crand, why do you feel the need to come into every thread that could be potentially seen as a slight towards women and rage about semantics? The question was posed; could she play in the NBA? Do you need to address the "man playing among women" thing? What bearing does that really even have on the topic. You are offended because of a generalization about women basketball players, and then you go and drop one yourself by saying that women are better educated because they complete 4 years at college. That assumes so many things. What kind of education do athletes actually get in college? Why does it necessarily take 4 years to complete college? (LaMichael James finished in three) Since when does spending time in school actually make you smarter or better educated than someone else? How many extremely intellectual people have we seen around the world who were self taught? Having spent quite a bit of time in school over the last four years, I can say the one thing that I have taken from school is that your education is what you make it. You get what you put in. Someone can go to school for six years and come out without much more knowledge than they went in with. They leave with a piece of paper that says they are smart. That's it. I just think it's hypocritical of you to be unhappy about one supposed slam, and then you go and drop one yourself.
Sorry, but women don't have the muscle make up to play baseball at a high level. As for your HORSE comment, sure they could. women can have just as good of muscle memory and hand eye coordination as men, but HORSE doesn't require game skills other than shooting. Also, you would need to enlarge the men's rim to make it even because the girls basketballs are smaller and easier to go through the hoop
