You know how I know the WNBA has officially, officially arrived?
Everybody has an opinion on the officials.
And you’re all right. Refs, you stink.
But not because the zebras aren’t doing enough to protect the league’s most popular player.
Because they’re not doing enough to protect Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Plum and Gabby Williams and any and all of the league’s most-entertaining playmakers, the women who would elevate the game even further if they had the freedom their NBA counterparts do.
If the WNBA did what the guys on the guys’ side did in 2018, when they put it in writing: “This season’s Points of Education promise to focus on … freedom of movement on the perimeter and in the post.”
Basketball fans might say we want to see physicality, hard-nosed defense, for the refs to let ’em play!
But what we love more is inspired shot-making. What we really want is to see points on the board. And, these days, that means exhibitions of floor-stretching, mind-bending, from-the-logo range, whether it’s Steph or Sabrina, Caitlin or Dame.
People used to use dunking – or the lack thereof – to dunk on the WNBA. But now millions of people are tuning in for, yes, Caitlin, but many more also have been watching for players like Plum, the Sparks’ big-time bucket-getter. Or JuJu Watkins, USC’s Euro-stepping, pace-pushing points machine.
And so, absolutely, the WNBA would benefit from legislation that counteracts how teams are (literally) handling Clark.
Do what the NBA did in the early 1990s when it outlawed hand-checking and gave refs license to be quicker with whistles to counteract the so-called “Jordan Rules.” Those referred to the Detroit Pistons’ too-effective strategy of physicality, trapping, hard-fouling – the stuff Clark and all the WNBA’s most competent, marketable scorers are still dealing with.
Do what the NBA did to make sure Stephen Curry would be free to run circles ’round opponents by implementing guidelines geared, in so many words, “toward cutting down on arm wraps, grabbing and dislodging by both offensive and defensive players.”
The NBA let it be known it was letting Chef Curry cook. Borrow that recipe, WNBA, and let Caitlin cook – and not just Caitlin. Let Sabrina Ionescu and Paige Bueckers cook, let Courtney Williams and Gabby Williams cook, let Plum and, soon enough, JuJu cook.
No, we don’t want to see free-throw shooting contests, but if men could adjust to a tighter whistle, women will too.
Because we won’t want to see Watkins having to give piggyback rides to defenders when she graduates to the WNBA.
We don’t need to see Plum pummeled as the price of admission every time she touches the paint. The All-Star point guard vented in a rant for the ages after she took just six free throws during 40 physical minutes in a loss on June 10: “I talk to the refs nice. I pray before the game. Like, [expletive], I’m over it.”
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We don’t want defenders steering so close to the Seattle Storm’s Gabby Williams that whenever France’s Olympic hero takes a jump shot she has to sweat the landing – the space below that’s so closely patrolled in today’s NBA, invading it will earn you a flagrant foul.
That’s still somehow a foreign concept in the WNBA, as Williams attested after a win over the Sparks on Tuesday, when she said she came down on a defender’s foot and suffered a sprained ankle for a second time in a matter of weeks: “I’m saying something to the ref, ‘Watch my landing space,’ … and I get laughed at.”
And we definitely don’t want to keep seeing as many clips of Clark being bear-hugged and poked at as we do her dishing and swishing and, well, cooking.
She and her colleagues will be better for stricter officiating, healthier. There will be a few fewer bumps and bruises, fewer scrapes with injury, players’ health and energy preserved for the duration of the league’s longer, compact schedule.
But let me issue a warning for the concerned citizens of Clarkdom: Cleaning up officiating won’t eliminate the dust-ups involving your girl.
And that’s not because her colleagues are jealous of her – though, I imagine, no matter how much they appreciate her game, no, they probably don’t appreciate being reminded incessantly how much less popular their league was before Clark arrived.
It’s because when Clark is cooking, she’s a menace, in the most marvelous way.
Because she brings it. It isn’t as though she’s shying away from contact, friends. It’s not like she doesn’t use her off arm to hit at defenders or her back and body to bump them. It’s not as if she’s Kawhi Leonard out there, rarely emoting as she efficiently goes about her business without much swagger or say-so.
On the contrary, it’s as much her fiery disposition as her arsenal of moves that makes her such a great watch. It’s that she grew up playing with brothers against whom basketball would become a blood sport, and that taught her to come packing kindling for the heat of battle. It’s that she’s so willing and able to antagonize opponents, like Jordan was, or Steph, when he’s putting them to bed.
On-court killers don’t need coddling, but they do need their leagues’ officials to police the games in a way that benefits The Game, taking into account player safety, yes, but also aesthetics.
So whether or not you’re mad at the Connecticut Sun’s Marina Mabrey for chest bumping Clark to the ground in the Fever’s victory Tuesday – and I’m not; this is New Jersey’s Marina Mabrey, she can’t wait to defend a teammate – the WNBA’s officials should follow the Curry recipe. They should ask themselves, if things got so spicy that someone sent Steph sprawling, what would the NBA’s refs do?
Yeah, they’d send the offending player home with the check.
Because when you have a Michelin-caliber chef, you give her the right to refuse service, and a kitchen with sufficient space to operate. You give her the freedom to cook.
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