Yeah....Phil is right....my friends and I had to play a team of girls in a 3 on 3 tournament....it never works out. Just ask any group of guys that gets matched up with women on the court. Not only did we have no mercy on them...by the end of the game, THEY were ready to fight.
Well, arguing the side of the people who see a physical mismatch, those aren't physical competition. But I generally agree. However, the NBA is a bit of a soap opera with Wade and LeBron now. They can't even handle having a single out gay player. A lot of emotional maturation on the status quo side would have to occur (in my opinion) for women to be able to participate athletically, and not as some sort of sideshow which could ultimately become defeating to the idea of merit over gender.
The physical mismatches are clearly there, and perhaps will always be there, and if so would mean no women since no team is likely to pay a player who can't stand up to the level of competition. (No mention of Darko, please.) But if the physical stuff were to go away, then I don't really see how life as we know it will be ruined for all time if a women were to play in the NBA.
We just turned ourselves into future Ron Artests and ran into the crowd to fight the guy with the beer.
Best basketball game I ever played was against the girls Basketball team at school. It was a faculty against the Varsity team game. The young ladies gave us a spirited game before losing to us. I was 45 at the time and the starting forward. Got 16 points on 6-9 shooting. Loved their intensity, teamwork, and desire to win. Since I've never played Varsity basketball, I can say this was my most intense ball ever. Let em play......
The group I used to play with had a couple of regular women players at different times. One was on her high school team and one played for the Community College. They were both very quick and fundamentally sound. The guys backed off them and gave them a lot of open shots because we didn't want to hack them as much as we did the other guys. Plus one of them would call a foul if you got to within arms length of her. With a bunch of old fat guys who gave them open shots they did quite well.
Why women on NBA teams and not vice versa? Since WNBA is not doing that well financially, maybe men should be WNBA teams to bring in the crowd. Stern should make it a mandate (maybe wrong to use this word here) that at least one starter on the men's team to play in the WNBA in the summer. Don't tell me the men are not ready to play in the WNBA cuz that's the worst excuse one can give. What I'm trying to say is let the men play in the men's league and the women on theirs. That's the reason they have the NBA and WNBA. That's the reason they have men's volleyball team and women's volleyball team and the same goes for other sports.
There may be a few players out there who were constantly waived from NBA teams that might do this just to get paid.....he would definitely be the go to guy or the man on the team.
i think it could be allowed but not mandated. GM's should be able to sign -anyone- they think is going to make the team better. If someone thinks a woman has earned a spot to play and will improve the team, why not let a GM sign her? If it doesn't work out, cut her. I don't see anything wrong with the option.
Stern's no dummy, he figures he can take the discussion and heat off Donaghy/ref betting/gambling issue for awhile by throwing out this subject matter about women in the NBA.....and look we are already up to 35 posts in this thread..which was more than the Fever and Mercury got in their championship series 3 months ago.
For the record, there's no rule in place saying women can't play in the NBA. In fact, when the drafts were larger there were some women that were drafted by NBA teams. They never made it (obviously).
There were at least two that were drafted...Lucy Harris back in 1977 and Denise Long in 1969 Lusia Harris - Hoopedia Denise (Long) Rife, Player » More Than A Game: 6-On-6 Basketball In Iowa » Iowa Stories » Iowa Public Television
Well they allowed two to ref NBA games and there was an initial cry over that and it quicky came to pass...
