By Kelly Dwyer
It turns out that the WNBA is awesome.
You'll have to excuse me for sounding like a blithering idiot, because I am a blithering idiot when it comes to this league. Not only am I lacking in the knowledge department, but it turns out I've wasted quite a few summers not paying attention to this league.
Not that I regret not staying inside when it was 80 degrees and sunny, but I still should have been watching more games. Because, as we've seen in this year's WNBA Finals, this league is frightfully entertaining.
Mind you, while I wasn't watching, I was cringing every time I heard sportswriters (including a very prominent one that everyone here knows about, no point in mentioning him) taking gratuitous shots at the league, all for the crime of having commercials for their league show up during NBA postseason games, or the odd bit of David Stern-influenced synergy during some contest nobody cares about during All-Star Weekend.
I never understood it. Never understood why seemingly fulfilled people wasted their time complaining about something that helps so many.
The league might be losing heaps of money, but that's the NBA's call. It doesn't affect you, save for the commercial you were fast-forwarding through anyway, and it positively affects thousands. Since 1997, the WNBA has created thousands of jobs that weren't there before — from the players and team employees, to the people who make those commercials, to the arena workers and parking attendants that didn't have a summer gig outside those giant winter-sport stadiums before this.
This league did nothing but create needed cash flow, for thousands of people, on the NBA's dime. And we're to rip it because ... it's annoying to see a WNBA ad on the scorer's table during a Conference semifinal? Pathetic, man. Absolutely pathetic.
Let's stop with the haughtiness, though, and get to what counts.
Tonight, at 7:30 p.m. Eastern, the Phoenix Mercury (featuring the sublime Cappie Pondexter, pictured above) will try to stay alive down two games to one in a best-of five Finals pairing with the Indiana Fever. Game 4 is in Indiana, and I'll be at Conseco Fieldhouse for the back and forth. TV coverage is on ESPN2.
And here's the call — if you're at all interested, swing by BDL at the same time, for a live blog. If you already know about the game, the league, come by to teach me about the game, and the league. If you're an interested newcomer, this will be right up your alley. We'll be chatting away about the WNBA and the WNBA only, highlighting some of the best Tweets along the way.
And if you'd asked me 12 months ago as to whether or not I'd have written a sentence like "we'll be chatting away about the WNBA and the WNBA only, highlighting some of the best Tweets along the way" in a year's time, well, you make the call.
If you do pass on, um, passing by, deciding to take in some postseason baseball instead, I can't blame you. Understand, though, what I've learned to understand over the last week — you'd be missing out on some fantastic basketball.
I can't help but recommend it.
The WNBA? I think you should
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Originally Posted by Shapecity
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