pilight
Sep 22, 2009 May 30, 2012 14 373
website: WNBA Stuff
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WNBA Opening Day Demographics
by pilight on May 17, 2012 5:04 PM EDT
on Swish Appeal
Some factoids about the 2012 opening day rosters
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Three things the WNBA could do better
by pilight on May 11, 2012 12:25 PM EDT
on Swish Appeal
The WNBA has many fine qualities and for the most part does a good job of maintaining and promoting the teams, games, and players. However, there are areas in which it could improve.
Now, most articles like this focus on things that cost money. Wouldn't it be great to pay salaries competitive with those in Europe, have the players flown on chartered jets, and have massive advertising blitzes during the NCAA tournament, and so on. The WNBA doesn't have tons of money, so today we're going to focus on things they can do that cost nothing.
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Best Draft Picks Ever in the WNBA
by pilight on May 3, 2012 2:43 PM EDT
on Swish Appeal
Over at Grantland, Bill Barnwell proposed a system for measuring an NFL player's performance as a draft pick. It's a very simple system that can easily be adapted for the WNBA.
Let's try it out and see how it looks!
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The age of repeating
by pilight on Oct 25, 2011 11:27 AM EDT
on Swish Appeal
How old is the WNBA? Not the league itself, which made quite a production out of telling everyone it's 15 years old, but the players. What's the average age of a WNBA player? How do the champion Lynx compare to the rest of the league, age-wise and what does it mean about their chances of repeating?
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Ranking the Finals
by pilight on Oct 18, 2011 1:14 PM EDT
on Swish Appeal
Did you find the 2011 WNBA finals compelling? Was it the best finals series ever? The always reliable John Hollinger has given us a method to determine which series was the greatest ever!
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Ranking the Lynx
by pilight on Oct 12, 2011 10:30 AM EDT
on Swish Appeal
Now that the season is over, we naturally start wondering where the 2011 Lynx rank among WNBA champions. Could they be the best team the league has ever seen, or did they just catch some lucky breaks and end up with the trophy? How do we determine where they fit in the spectrum of champions?
Luckily, we have two methods available to determine which championship team is the best of the best.
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The Minnesota Lynx and playoff clinching
by pilight on Aug 19, 2011 11:15 AM EDT
on Swish Appeal
They haven't done it yet. Obviously a win over the Sparks tomorrow would put them in. However, if Seattle loses it would put the Lynx in even if they lost to LA.
A Storm loss puts them at 13-13 while the Sparks would be at 11-14 with a win over the Lynx. Minnesota can't do worse than 19-15. Seattle and LA have two games remaining against one another, meaning they can't both finish at 20-14 or better. The Lynx own the tiebreak over both teams.
"What about multiple team ties involving San Antonio and/or Phoenix?", I hear you asking.
Tamika Catchings, 5000, and the Value of Draft Classes
by pilight on Aug 15, 2011 3:39 PM EDT
on Swish Appeal
Over the weekend, Tamika Catchings became the 6th player in WNBA history to score 5000 career points. Catch has been a great player for a long time and does a lot of things well besides scoring, but 5k points is a significant milestone. Perhaps more interestingly, Catch is the second player from the 2001 Draft Class to cross the 5000 mark, after Lauren Jackson. It's the only class to have two (so far).
It's always been an article of faith among WNBA fans that the 1999 Draft Class, with all the ABL players along with Chamique Holdsclaw, Nykesha Sales, and Becky Hammon, was the best in WNBA history. A closer look suggests that this might not be the case.
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Why do guys watch sports?
by pilight on Aug 8, 2011 10:55 AM EDT
on Swish Appeal
There's a perennial question that surrounds the WNBA: How can the league get more male viewers? Men make up the bulk of sports enthusiasts, of course, and the WNBA is a sports league. It follows naturally that the W would want to win over some of those sports fans.
I think the best place to start would be examining why guys watch sports in the first place.
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Lindsey Harding traded to Atlanta
Washington Mystics General Manager and Head Coach Trudi Lacey announced today that the team has acquired center Ta’Shia Phillips, guard Kelly Miller and a 2012 first round draft pick from the Atlanta Dream in exchange for guard Lindsey Harding and the Mystics second round pick in the 2012 WNBA draft.
Why is scoring down in the NCAA tournament?
by pilight on Mar 12, 2011 10:32 AM EST
on Swish Appeal
In 1986 Texas won the NCAA tournament with a 97-81 victory over Cheryl Miller and USC. The Longhorns had also scored 90 points in the semifinals and had a 106 point effort in the second round. Thus ended what was at that point the lowest scoring tournament in NCAA history.
In 2009 the entire tournament field, which had expanded from the 40 teams of the 1986 Longhorns day to 64, managed only three 90+ point games among them, all in early round blowouts.
Why don't we see scoring like we did in the old days?
Donna Orender to step down as WNBA president
Donna Orender, who succeeded founding president Val Ackerman in April 2005, will resign effective Dec. 31. She will be a consultant to the league.
Time to change WNBA All Star voting?
by pilight on Oct 18, 2010 3:18 PM EDT
on Swish Appeal
I was compiling All Star votes for my WNBA site and while typing the note about how the 2010 selection was different from previous years I started thinking about the All Star voting process. Couldn't we change the traditional methodology to implement aspects of the 2010 procedure?
Rookie of the Year voting trends
by pilight on Sep 1, 2010 1:41 PM EDT
on Swish Appeal
No surprise that Tina Charles won ROY. It was the biggest no brainer award of the year. However, it does fit in the recent trend of ROY winners.
I don't mean the unanimous vote, that's rare. Only Candace Parker in 2008 had gotten the award unanimously before. The ROY vote is almost never close. Only once has it been decided by fewer than a dozen votes; in 1998 it was Tracy Reid 20, Korie Hlede 18, Ticha Penicheiro 7. Most often it's like last year's vote, a clear winner with one or two others distantly behind; Angel McCoughtry 30, DeWanna Bonner 9, Shavonte Zellous 2.
No, the trend I'm talking about is the award going to players selected at or near the top of the draft. There was no ROY award given in 1997. In the next six seasons, the award went to the #1 overall pick only once (1999 Chamique Holdsclaw). It went to players selected outside the top five picks twice (1998 Reid #7, 2000 Betty Lennox #6). In recent years it's been the opposite. Three straight, and four of the last five, have gone to #1 overall picks. Only one of the last nine has gone to a player selected outside the top three (2005 Temeka Johnson #5).
This suggests that WNBA GMs have gotten better at scouting and drafting. If I had to pinpoint a cause, I'd say it was the entrance of Bill Laimbeer into the league as GM of the Shock. He snagged 2003 ROY Cheryl Ford at #3 in his first draft, stole Kara Braxton at #7 two years later, and changed the way other GMs evaluated talent by killing them in lopsided trades (Elaine Powell, Plenette Pierson, Katie Smith, etc.).
NOTES: No #2 pick has won ROY, or seriously contended for the award. Reid at #7 in 1998 is the lowest pick to win.
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