Women playing in NBA? Don't be stupid
NBA commissioner David Stern calls it "a good possibility" that a woman will play in the NBA within the next 10 years, and some people are taking him seriously, which is stupid. Or they're pretending to take him seriously, which is insulting.
Let's be courteous enough -- to both genders -- to speak honestly here: A woman will never play in the NBA.
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| Diana Taurasi is a fantastic WNBA player. The MVP, in fact. But she wouldn't make it in the NBA. (Getty Images) |
Beyond a publicity stunt, I mean. A desperate owner could pander to his female fan base by bringing a woman to camp and forcing his coach and general manager to put her on the team, maybe at the end of the bench or even more transparently on the "injured list." Sure, I could see that.
But a woman actually being good enough to make a roster? Nope. Can't see that. And I never will see that. And if you think I'm being sexist, I would ask you to define the term.
Is it sexist to acknowledge eons of human physiology? Is it sexist to notice David Stern's stupefying attempt at political correctness? Is it sexist to say that -- at the top of the food chain -- the biggest, strongest, fastest, most explosive woman is neither big, strong, fast nor explosive enough to play in the NBA?
No. It's not.
Look, in certain settings, a woman can outplay a man in basketball. Hell, a woman has outplayed me in basketball (not that it's all that hard). I was in a pickup game years ago with a woman who played at the University of Tampa, an NCAA Division II school, and she kicked my ass. Was I ashamed? Of course not. She was in great shape, and she was a college basketball player, and I was not.
At Tennessee, coach Pat Summitt sharpens her team by pitting it against male practice players -- decent players, guys who were good in high school -- and I bet her team routinely kicks the testosterone out of those guys. Her players are among the national elite, and a nationally elite college woman will outplay a decent dude from high school almost every time.
But that's not what we're talking about here, and it's not what David Stern was talking about recently when Sports Illustrated stupidly asked him if a woman could make it into the NBA within a decade, and Stern even more stupidly responded: "I think we might. I don't want to get into all kinds of arguments with players and coaches about the likelihood. But I really think it's a good possibility."
Added Stern, "I think that's well within the range of probability."
Nonsense. David Stern is way too smart to believe that. Unfortunately, he wasn't too smart to say it, and from what I've seen, lots of people are too scared to refute it. In a follow-up story in the Oregonian, former Blazers guard Darnell Valentine said of women in the NBA, "Will they be able to play? Certainly. But being an impact player? No. I just don't see it." In that same story, Rockets coach Rick Adelman said, "I don't know if it will happen, but I've seen stranger things in my lifetime."
Adelman was being politically correct. Valentine was being condescending. I'll be blunt:
A woman will never play her way into the NBA.
Look at the reigning women's 800-meter world champion, Caster Semenya. Genetically speaking, she's about as masculine a woman as we'll ever find. She's so masculine, given her unique genetic makeup, that she probably will never be allowed to compete with women again after she demolished the field at the 2009 World Championship in 1 minute, 55.45 seconds. That was too good for the best women in the world ... but more than 14 seconds off the men's world record of 1:41.11. Do you have any idea how big a gap that is over 800 meters? It's about 100 meters, or one-eighth of the whole damn race. That's a blowout. That's an embarrassment. That's not even in the same category.
Which is my point. In certain sports -- not all, but certain -- women aren't in the same category with men. I imagine I'll get hate mail for this position, but I can't imagine why. Women can do lots of things as well as men. They can race cars with men; Danica Patrick isn't terribly good at it, but she's good enough to belong. They can race horses with men; Julie Krone won the 1993 Belmont Stakes. They can't make the cut at a PGA Tour event, but they can beat a handful of male pros in a given week, as Annika Sorenstam and Michelle Wie have done.
But women can't run with men. Can't lift with men. Can't jump with men. Not at the top of the food chain, which is what we're talking about here. We're not talking about a woman walking into the local YMCA and holding her own in a lunch game. We're talking about the best of the best.
And that's what the NBA is full of -- the best of the best. I'm not going to be unfair and ask you to show me the woman who can compete with LeBron James. Very few men can compete with LeBron James. But I would like you to show me the woman who can compete with James' teammate, Jamario Moon, a 6-foot-8 helicopter who shoots 35 percent from 3-point range. He's a physical beast, the top 1 percent of 1 percent of athletes in the world ... and he's just an average NBA player.
There's the whole issue of the ball, too. The prototype NBA woman out there, the one who some say might be The One, is Diana Taurasi. She's a woman among girls in the WNBA, a 6-foot shooting guard, but in the NBA she would be small, slow and weak. And she would be playing with a different-sized ball. So on top of being smaller, slower and weaker than her male counterparts, Taurasi also would be relearning how to shoot, since the NBA ball is bigger than the ball she has always used. Not that the ball matters, because athletically speaking, Taurasi can't guard Speedy Claxton. And as far as NBA talent goes, Speedy Claxton is lousy.
This is a stupid topic, you know that? It was a stupid question to be raised by Sports Illustrated, and it was a gutless stand to be made by David Stern. And now look at me. I just wasted more than 1,000 words writing the most obvious argument I will ever make, and I've made some obvious ones. But never one as obvious as this.
A woman can't compete in the NBA.
And don't tell me I'm sexist. Tell me I'm right.
