Atlanta @ Indiana, Game 2 2013 ECF Finals

As you can tell, the Dream are going to the Eastern Conference Finals and I am very happy about that.  It was farther than I thought we'd get, but there's a reason we play these games, you know.

The Dream did it three ways.  They did it with defense, holding the defending WNBA champions to just 28.1 percent shooting. (This is the second time in the playoffs that Atlanta forced their opponents to under-30 percent shooting.)  I don't have stats about playoff shooting, but that's just insane.

The second is with rebounding, a 43-33 overall advantage over Indiana. 

The third is that Angel McCoughtry finally had that game she was looking for - 27 points on 10-for-21 shooting.  The great thing about McCoughtry is that even if she's not shooting well, the mere potential that she might blow up can give opponents fits.

This puts Atlanta in the position of playing Minnesota, the team that swept us in the 2011 WNBA Finals.  Since Atlanta is 0-6 all time in the Finals, the usual suspects are preaching sweep.  Minnesota had the best record in the WNBA this year and of course, those first two games are going to be played on the road, where the Dream have struggled in the regular season (but are 2-0 on the road in the playoffs.)

My prediction is that the Dream should get at least one win in the Finals.  This is the third time they've been there; they now know what it takes to win Finals games.  Whether or not they'll actually win the Finals, I can't say; Minnesota is about as tough an opponent as you could pick and this is their third straight season as Western Conference champions.   To go to Full Wishy-Washy, don't be surprised if the Lynx win Game One by 20 points...but don't be surprised if Atlanta takes a 1-0 lead, either.

(* * *)

In 2009, the Dream had the infamous "Elmo Game", where the Dream were shoved out of Phillips for a performance of "Sesame Street Live".  Atlanta was forced to play in Gwinnett, where the Dream lost the second game of the opening round to the (then) Detroit Shock.

Due to arena availability, it looks like Atlanta will be forced to play Game Three and Game Four (if necessary) back in Gwinnett.  Last time it was Elmo and Friends shoving the Dream out of Philips, this time it's Disney princesses, with Disney on Ice:  Let's Celebrate!  Disney has the arena locked up from October 9th through 13th.

I remember being in the Dream locker room after Game Two, where someone was handing out paychecks to the disconsolate Dream.  There's some bad mojo there that will need to be dispelled.

(* * *)

I was up and down all morning about whether to see the Full Court Fresh 50.  I couldn't abandon Atlanta in its hour of need, and I rubbed Malcolm the Cat's foot for good luck.  I believe the Full Court game was a blow-out; I went over to Fullcourt.com this morning, but no writeup.  Maybe later.  Hoping for video, as the game was apparently live-streamed.

(* * *)

The next question is what the hell am I going to do until Thursday?  Much less, what am I going to do when the pro women's season ends?

Indiana @ Atlanta, Game 1, 2013 Eastern Conference Finals

Going to be a busy day, so I'll try to keep this blog entry short.

Let's assume that you don't know who to root for out of the four remaining teams - Atlanta, Indiana, Minnesota, Phoenix.  (This would imply that you're new to the W, because most W fans have strong opinions.)  You're looking for some guidance.  My advice is to root for the Atlanta Dream.

Why?  Because it makes all of the right people unhappy when the Dream win.

(* * *)

I didn't have much of a reason to put that there.  Apparently Diana Taurasi of the Mercury and Seimone Augustus got double fouls in last night's Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals after some game-based shoving.  Taurasi then lightened the mood by smooching Augustus.  Besides, Augustus is an open lesbian, that's probably not the way you'd intimidate her.

Normally, YouTube comments are a wretched hive of scum and villany, but one commenter wrote, "If that happened in the NBA, everyone's head would explode."  Well, maybe not if Metta World Peace did it.

(* * *)

I had a chance to talk to Lin Dunn before the game.  That article will be part of my game writeup which should show up around 12 noon Eastern, so you know where to go to find it.

Her first remarks were, "Let's get this over with, so I can concentrate on the game!"  But otherwise, she was very friendly.  I didn't report that she was suffering a gluteous minimus injury in my writeup, to avoid the inevitable LOL Butthurt response.

She also spilled her Diet Coke by accident on the floor - she placed it under her seat, and probably bumped against it with her foot.  Makes me feel good, because I can now say, "Hey, WNBA coaches are human just like me.  They even spill soda just like me!"

(* * *)

It was a great game, one of those games that you use to sell the game to other people.  That last minute was a real nailbiter, and I could probably talk about that for years.  That TO Lin Dunn called that erased a McCoughtry steal/fastbreak.  McCoughtry fouling Catch at the three point line.  Indiana getting the rebound on Catch's missed free throw but doing nothing with it.  That stupid dead ball foul with 16 seconds left.  Great game, looking forward to Game Two.

(* **)

Speaking of Game Two, I'm leaning towards putting it on DVR.  Nothing I can do in Atlanta to affect the outcome; that game's in Indianapolis.  Even if the Dream lose - which is a real risk, given that Indiana is a very dangerous team to put in the corner of elimination, and the Dream are terrible on the road - we still get a Game Three on Tuesday.  I'll go watch the Full Court Fresh 50 in person and look at some of the up and coming high school players.

(* * *)

I got an e-mail from a radio station that wanted to use me as a contact person for all matters WNBA.  I called them back, agreed, and then told them the name of a local beat writer they should also contact as this wasn't an Atlanta radio station. It was the radio station from a WNBA town I won't be naming.  Given that their beat writer is prominent, they probably won't be asking me for any more WNBA info any time soon.  Sic transit gloria mundi.

Eastern and Western Conference Semifinals, Conclusion

Atlanta's victory over Washington in Game Three of the Eastern Conference Semifinals was personally satisfying to me as an Atlanta Dream fan for a number of reasons.  Most of those reasons have to deal with various arguments asserted that since:

* Atlanta is a "bad sports town",
* Fred Williams is a bad coach,
* Angel McCoughtry is cranky/crazy, and
* Atlanta hasn't had good playoff attendance, that, therefore:

* Atlanta doesn't deserve a WNBA franchise.

To which I reply, "Suck it haters, PTHBTHBTHBTHBTHB."  This might not be seen as a deserving counter-reply, but the arguments above aren't very good either.

* Even if Atlanta is a bad sports town - and I think this is true - who made you the boss of whether or not Atlanta "deserves" a team?
* If Fred Williams is such a bad coach, then how did such a bad coach win this series?  (Unfortunately, this is the kind of question where haters will just move the goalposts.  Even if Senor Fred is holding up the Silver Boob at the end of the season, the haters will just figure out a way to avoid giving him any credit for it - See:  Meadors, Marynell.)
* As Charles Barkley might say, "Who made me your role model?"
* Okay.  The playoff attendance hasn't been good.  Even so, looking at attendance in isolation from a host of other factors - civic culture, sports history, attitudes, psychology, etc. etc. - is not the best approach.

I had a chance to chat with Mike Thibault before the game.  Not all of the stuff we talked about made it into the article, but that was to keep the article from going to 4,000 words. He told me something interesting - namely, that going into this season, he was more interested in seeing what kind of team he actually had than setting a playoff appearance as some kind of arbitrary benchmark that would make or break the Mystics season.  After 11 wins in two years, he certainly couldn't expect to go there and it would have been unfair for him to make it as a demand.  His goal was to teach the team a winning culture; a playoff appearance is just icing on the cake.

Not that Thibault doesn't like winning.  Far from it, he expects to win.  He was very disappointed after the game because this was a "winnable" game and the Mystics lost it.  The players were disappointed, too.  Ivory Latta could barely speak after the game. 

Yes, the goal is to Win The Whole Damned Thing.  But Washington's accomplishments should not be overlooked, they are clearly a Team on the Rise.

I asked him if he would rather have Latta overseas or coaching at North Carolina.  His reply is not that one was necessarily better than the other, but coaching will teach Latta a few things.  He stated that the point guard is the representative of the coach's philosophy and in efforts to teach others, she'll have a few "aha!" moments about why he can be so frustrated sometimes.  He joked that he plans to call her some time during the season if there's a rough patch and ask her, "See what I mean?"

He also liked the energy that she brings to a team.  Latta brings energy.  Everyone loves Ivory Latta.  *I* love Ivory Latta, and she's not even my team and for Meadors's purposes I thought that Lehning was better than Latta.  If you talk to Ivory Latta, you either fall in love with Ivory Latta or your heart is made out of granite.

(* * *)

I also had a chance to talk to Senor Fred.  One of the topics was Erika de Souza.  Even though Erika's English is a lot better than five years ago, she still needs her translator so it's not perfect.  But she can understand basketball terminology, or as Williams put it, "coach-speak". 

(* * *)

When I got home, I missed Phoenix @ Los Angeles - all but the last play of the game, after I had settled into bed with Bunny and I said, "Flip over to the Phoenix @ Los Angeles game."  The only problem with Phoenix winning is that it will make some of Phoenix's fan base more insufferable than they already are.   

Then again, it could just be the five percent rule in action.  During a graduation ceremony, a police commissioner told his newly graduated cadets that out of the entire class, five percent exemplified everything that a policeman should be.  An additional five percent would turn out to be nothing more than criminals wearing badges.  "An entire squad, an entire precinct, an entire force will go in the direction of whichever five percent turns out to have the most influence."

The message is to give support to good behaviors.  A lot of Phoenix Mercury fans are nice people.  Ben York is a mensch.  Seth Pollack is cool. 

I like the Mercury.  Brittney Griner seems sweet.  I like Diana Taurasi, we were going in opposite directions under Philips Arena and she made the briefest of incidental contact with me.  She apologized immediately, even though it wasn't the kind of contact - a mere brush in close quarters - that even deserved an apology; if she said nothing I wouldn't have thought any worse of her.  Russ Pennell is a hoot to talk to. Not only do I like the Mercury, I respect them, I love their history, I loved the old Michelle Timms-Mercury.

Some "trash talk" however, belongs right in the sewer. 

A quick sum up of Washington @ Atlanta

It looks like the next couple of days will be busy.  Projects at work.  A game on Thursday night to attend, possibly games on both Saturday (WNBA, to watch) and/or Sunday (high school).  So for that one blogger who is reading this, you might have to wait for future posts.

However, I only have one comment to those in dismay that Atlanta advanced to the Finals - to ESPN2, to NBA-TV, to any one in the WNBA front office, and to those self-appointed guardians in women's pro basketball fandom who doesn't think Atlanta deserves a team.

To them, I say:  "Suck it, haterz, PTHBTHBTHBTHBTHB!"

Atlanta @ Washington; Los Angeles @ Phoenix - WNBA Conference Semifinals, Game 2

Last night's game answered the question, "Out of Atlanta and Washington, which team wants to go to the Eastern Conference Finals the least?  In this case, it was Washington's turn to stink up the joint, by default sending this Eastern Conference Semifinals to a decisive Game 3 in Atlanta on Monday night.

The good news is that we only have three games in a semifinals; there might have been riots if it went to five games.  Generally one dead quarter (<10 points) will kill a team, and the Mystics had two of them.  (We can name those quarters "suck" and "blow" respectively.)

Atlanta shot a high-school 35.2 percent FG percentage, but Washington topped that with a 25 percent (14-for-56) "effort".  I don't know much about the mental game of basketball, but in golf that would be a serious case of the yips.  Frankly, it's hard to lose a game when you opponent only makes 1 out of 4 attempts, and I wonder how much of that can be attributed to Atlanta's D.

One change was Willingham did not start.  She hurt her right knee (how can you tell?) and was replaced in the lineup by Aneika Henry.  Henry scored 10 points and 12 rebounds against the Mystics, and with Willingham looking doubtful for Game 3, if Atlanta wins that game the story is going to be why didn't Senor Fred start Henry sooner over Willingham?

Some statistics, copped from Paul Swanson:

Lowest field-goal percentage, playoff game
.224 -- Phoenix vs. New York, August 28, 1997 (15/67)
.250 -- Washington vs. Atlanta, September 21, 2013 (14/56)
.260 -- New York at Connecticut, September 27, 2012 (20/77)
.267 -- Atlanta vs. Washington, September 19, 2013 (20/75)
.268 -- Sacramento vs. Utah, August 19, 2001 (15/56)

Lowest field-goal percentage, both teams, playoff game
.299 -- Houston (.288) vs. New York (.309), September 5, 1999 (32/107)
.301 -- Connecticut (.278) vs. Washington (.324), August 20, 2006 (43/143)
.307 -- Washington (.250) vs. Atlanta (.352), September 21, 2013 (39/127)
.314 -- Indiana (.281) vs. New York (.354), September 1, 2005 (33/105)

Fewest field goals, playoff game
14 -- Washington vs. Atlanta, September 21, 2013
14 -- Charlotte at New York, August 27, 2001
15 -- Sacramento vs. Utah, August 19, 2001
15 -- Houston vs. New York, September 5, 1999
15 -- Houston vs. New York, September 4, 1999
15 -- Phoenix vs. New York, August 28, 1997

Most rebounds, playoff game
53 -- Atlanta at Washington, September 21, 2013
52 -- Indiana at Connecticut, August 23, 2007 (3OT)
50 -- Detroit vs. Phoenix, September 8, 2007
49 -- Seattle vs. Phoenix, September 15, 2011

So Henry's rebounding performance doesn't look that great.  Everyone got a chance at the boards for Atlanta - de Souza had 15, Henry had 12, Hayes had 11.  Even Armintie Herrington had 7 rebounds, and she only friggin played 20 minutes!   

McCoughtry came out knowing that she'd have to carry the team on her back, but after a while it became clear that that was unnecessary.   Crystal Langhorne evaporated.  Zero points, 3 rebounds.  Atlanta did whatever it wanted to do on the glass.

I'll be there Monday night, obviously.  

As for Los Angeles @ Phoenix, I was impressed with both Brittney Griner and Diana Taurasi.  That game was a nice contrast to the sucky Atlanta-Washington series.  Parker had 31/11 rebounds, Ogwumike had 15/11 rebounds, and clearly, Los Angeles wasn't going to disappear into the desert night.  This has been a good series; a shame I won't get a chance to see it live on Monday night.

Indiana @ Chicago, Minnesota @ Seattle (Game 1)

I found this old article from John Altavilla.  It reads:

Meadors was an assistant with Doug Bruno and Sun assistant coach Jen Gillom. She is currently not working but is still being paid by the Dream, who fired her late last season.

 The Dream initially extended her contract in 2011 to the end of the 2013 season.  This means that Meadors can now return to coaching in 2014, if she wants to.  The question is, does she want to ?  Meadors is now 70 years old, and most people are thinking about retirement at that age.  I'd like to see her back in the league at some capacity, but we'll probably never see her in Atlanta again as long as either Angel McCoughtry or the current ownership are still there.

(* * *)

 I got a call from an old basketball friend last night, where we talked about the woeful state of the Dream.

* Le'coe Willingham's contract extends to the end of the 2014 season.  So Senor Fred's only hope is to trade Willingham.  However, now that the rest of the league has seen her play, that might not be possible.  The only other option might be to hide her at the bottom of the bench until we make a trade where the price of the trade is taking Willingham, too.

* I agreed with him that the Dream are sort of doomed.  His west coast friend swears up and down that the Dream are going to be relocated to California the second that Brock and Loeffler get tired of running the team.  His friend's claim is that the Dream will move to Oakland and the Minnesota Lynx will be shuffled over to the Eastern Conference.

Indeed, there are lots of people out there - a surprising number - that are not only willing but eager to ax Atlanta's franchise.  The logic is that since the team doesn't draw, it must be moved.

The only kernel of real logic there is that empty arenas look bad on TV.  But Atlanta suffers from a great deal of woes that only time can overcome:

1.  It's a town of transplants, and many transplants have an attachment to the teams where they grew up.
2.  Towns like New York, Boston, Chicago have had pro sports for over a century.  So they have thriving sports cultures.  But pro sports didn't give a damn about Atlanta at all until the 1960s or so. 

Braves: 1966
Falcons: 1966
Hawks:  1968

That's not even fifty years, people.

3.  We don't own the arena.  That's a big one.  Teams like New York, Phoenix, Minnesota are owned by the NBA owner, so they own the arena.  Our owners don't.  They have to lease it.  I'll also bet money that the Dream don't get a slice either of parking or of concessions.  Every dollar you have to spend on necessities is one that you can't spend on promotion.

But until the Dream truly are doomed, I'm hanging on.  I know they'll be around at least until the end of 2014.  And as the proverb says, "Maybe the donkey will speak Hebrew."

(* * *)

Watched most of Indiana @ Chicago and part of Minnesota @ Seattle.  The latter one can be ignored, the only question was not if the Lynx would win, but when.  Seattle is now off to the Tacoma Dome on Sunday where they'll probably end their season.

Indiana vs. Chicago was surprising.  Looks like Katie Douglas is hurt again.  Even so, Indiana turned on the intensity and just showed the Sky what playoff basketball looks like.  Chicago kept trying to high-lo the ball into the interior and the Fever just weren't having it.  Game Two at Indiana is going to be very interesting; what is the WNBA going to do if the Eastern Conference Finals are Indiana vs. Washington?

WNBA and ESPN officials would love to see Chicago vs. Phoenix in the Finals.  That's the difference between Three to See and Nothing to See Here.

Washington @ Atlanta

My writeup on this game is here at Swish Appeal. So go read it first, and come back.

This is the kind of game that gets WNBA coaches fired.  The Dream have hit the franchise low point in scoring (56) two times this season, once against Chicago and once in the first round of the playoffs.  The Chicago game set a franchise low in shooting percentage at 28.6 percent, and congratulations!  Atlanta just broke the record again.

The best thing to do about that game is to just forget it.  Treat it as a fluke, no one was ready, and move on.  Right now, I'm sure Atlanta fans have the feeling of a resident of Death Row.  You know that you're going to be executed, you just don't know when.  Will your stay be commuted on Saturday?  Or will the warden show up with the preacher and say, "It's time to go?"

What's the problem?  Here are the Eastern Conference standings before July 1:

Atlanta:  10-1
Chicago:  7-3
New York:  5-4
Washington:  5-6
Indiana:  3-7
Connecticut:  2-7

Here are the Eastern Conference standings since July 1, after we started 10-1.

Chicago:  17-7
Indiana:  13-11
Washington: 12-11
Atlanta:  7-16
Connecticut:  8-17
New York:  6-19

Yeah, a few of these things are not like the others.  Not only is the 7-16 (now 7-17 after last night's game) cause for serious alarm, but this puts Atlanta as tied with the Connecticut Sun for fourth place after July 1st.  How bad are we?  We'd be a lottery team, that's how bad we've been after July 1st.

Lottery teams don't win championships.  We don't even have the advantages of a lottery pick for all our sorriness.  We'll probably end up with a #8-#9 pick, if I've got it calculated correctly.  The 2014 draft might be deep, but it ain't that deep.

I have very little faith that we can get out of the first round, but they play these games for a reason.  If you shoot 26-point-something percent against the Mystics, how well do you think you'll do against Chicago?  Or Minnesota?  Richard Cohen stated that Atlanta's outcomes were very "variant", in that we have a 50 percent chance of shooting the lights out or shooting ourselves, depending on the day.  But I don't think that's true. He's looking at those first 11 games as well, but we've just been a very bad team after that, and now it's been exposed. 

If the Dream started 7-16, got Sancho Lyttle back after her being out all year, and went 10-1, we'd be calling Fred Williams a genius and Sancho Lyttle MVP.  But it's not going to happen that way.

(* * *)

The worst stat, however, is hidden somewhere in the box score.

Attendance:  3862

I know we've had a couple of games over the last six years where we had less than 3,000 in attendance.  So it's not the worst game attendance ever from the Dream.  But it is pretty low.  And for a playoff game, it's embarrassing.

Part of the problem stems from the fact that teams don't get the playoff schedules until very late in the year.  By the time a team learns if it's playing on Thursday or Friday, it's very difficult to promote the game or sell tickets to it. 

But the bigger problem stems from the nature of Atlanta itself.  I've made excuses for Atlanta for a long time but Atlanta is just a bad sports town, period.  You'll read a lot of posts from trolls on the internet about Atlanta sucking, and a lot of it is trolling.

But hey, Atlanta. Prove me wrong.  Show up at games. 

A lot of it is just plain ineptitude over the years.  The Braves went to the playoffs every year for a wild string of years, but only have one championship to show for it.  The Falcons and the Hawks have - historically - not been all that great.  We ran two hockey teams out of town.

I think another problem is where the arenas are located.  If you are building a sports complex in Atlanta, midtown Atlanta is a terrible place to put it.  Traffic is awful, making it a real ordeal to get to.  (It took me a full hour to travel the 13 or so miles from work to the game between 5 pm and 6 pm.)  There is mass transit but no one likes riding a subway - I lived in New York for three years and I didn't like riding the subway on good days. 

However, there are great advantages to life in Atlanta.  James Sinclair wrote:

Point is, if that's what it would take for Atlanta to turn its reputation around — stadiums and sports bars and message boards full of despondent, entitled assholes (and I think that is what it would take) — then I don't want to see it happen. Rob Parker is merely the latest member of the sports media to chastise Atlanta by rehashing the narrative that being a good sports fan means supporting your team with equal fervor win or lose (instead of behaving rationally by rewarding good management and punishing bad management), and being upset that your neighbor still pulls for the team in whatever city he's from (instead of being proud that he'd rather live in your city than his), and conflating on-field misfortune with real trauma (instead of displaying the emotional maturity of an actual adult).

Touche.  I'm going to borrow a footnote from Sinclair, slightly modified:

But still the game goes on. The in-bound pass goes to Le'coe Willingham and she surveys the court, looking for an opening, but in that place inside her where there should be strength and hunger and aggression there is only the unshakable feeling that nobody gives a shit — that on this court, in this city, there is no difference between winning and losing — and so she puts up a 12-footer that misses everything.

(* * *)

Naturally, my late return kept me from watching Phoenix @ Los Angeles.  Seems like Diana Taurasi was making a statement about whom she felt should be MVP.

2013 MVP: Candace Parker (not confirmed)

According to Doug Feinberg at the Associated Press, Candace Parker has won the Most Valuable Player award.

I'm not going to sit and cry my eyes out, since I had her as #2 on the ballot.  Although I've now concluded that Syliva Fowles is never going to be given an MVP Award no matter how talented she is, because Parker's narratives are better.  (Tennessee player!  Wife and mother!  Husband is NBA baller!)

What really surprised me was that Maya Moore got 10 first place votes.  Really?  REALLY?  Maya's good, but she wasn't MVP.  Not this year.

The tally was supposedly:

Parker - 234
Moore - 218
Delle Donne - 189

Either Delle Donne was the #2 player on a lot of those 39 ballots, or some of the voters thought, "Oh, that blonde girl.  I've heard of her.  I'll vote for her!"  Makes you wonder sometimes.

Congratulations, Candace Parker.  I suspect this won't be your only WNBA MVP award.

Judy Mosley-McAfee (1968-2013)

Judy Mosley-McAfee, who played for the University of Hawai'i from 1987-90 and in the WNBA for one season with Sacramento in 1997, passed away on September 16th from cancer.  She was actually younger than I am, which should give anyone reflection about how short life really is.  We tend to believe that we have an unlimited supply of time until we go to the cupboard and find it empty.

She is survived by her husband and four children.  My condolences to them; their sadness must be hard to measure.

According to the obit published at the University of Hawai'i website, she played nine years professionally overseas.  She set a ridiculous number of records at Hawai'i, including most points in a game (46) and most points as a Rainbow Wahine (2,479, over 600 points more than the second place finisher.

(There have been two WNBA players who were Hawai'i grads.  One was Mosley-McAfee and the other one was Amy Sanders, who played for nine minutes over two games in 2007 for the Detroit Shock.)

In her WNBA career, she actually did fairly well, by which I mean she wasn't a washout.  She didn't score a lot of points (4.6 ppg in 12 games) but she shot 45.8 percent from the field.  Given that the WNBA was about to expand in a big way in the next three years, I can't see why she didn't hang on for a little longer.  It might have been a height thing - there isn't much of a demand these days for 6'1" forwards.  We'll never know.

She played for a lot of European teams from 1990-97.  Which teams are those?  No one can say.  After her year in Sacramento, she played for two more years overseas (1998-99) and then hung up her sneakers.

I was lucky enough to find the photo up there which might be the only visual record of Mosley-McAfee playing WNBA ball.  Given the here-today-gone-tomorrow nature of Euroball, many of Mosley-McAfee's European teams might not even exist.  The Sacramento Monarchs don't exist anymore either - they folded in 2009.  Maybe somewhere if the WNBA film vaults (if such a thing exists) there's a film record of Mosley-McAfee.

I remember that Bill James pondered about the push to put George Van Haltren, a 19th-century ball player, into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Yes, Van Haltren deserved it, but James's questions was why we were doing it?  We couldn't say that we were doing it to honor his memory because no one alive had seen him play and his descendents (if he had any) probably didn't remember him either.  (Aside for a couple of interesting facts about my great-great grandparents, I certainly don't remember them.)

However, we can remember Mosley-McAfee's contributions to professional women's basketball.  There are still people alive who remember her and who loved her.  Basketball was an important part of her life, but it wasn't all of her life, and even though we don't know her very well, through basketball we can make that connection and feel that loss to some small degree and to sympathize with the sadness that others who knew her more closely must feel.

Rest in peace.

Weird Stats of the 2013 Regular Season

Least Attended Games

4019 - 9/4/2013, Atlanta @ Indiana
4107 - 7/21/2013, Tulsa @ Atlanta
4135 - 8/6/2013, Chicago @ Indiana
4161 - 6/20/2013, Tulsa @ Chicago
4206 - 6/16/2013, Phoenix @ Tulsa

Shortest Game

1 h, 35 min - 7/20/2013, Connecticut @ San Antonio

Longest Game

2 h, 52 min - 8/25/2013, Tulsa @ Los Angeles (Los Angeles wins 90-88 in 2 OT)

Biggest Lead Lost

25 points, 8/18/2013, Connecticut @ Chicago (Chicago won 89-78)

Earliest start

11 am ET, three games

Latest start

11 pm ET, 6/21/2013 Minnesota @ Los Angeles, 8/16/2013 Indiana @ Los Angeles

Most Fast Break Points in a Game

28, 6/23/2013 Los Angeles @ Washington (by Los Angeles), 7/24/2013, Phoenix @ Minnesota (by Minnesota)

Fewest Fast Break Points in a Game

0, 9 games

Most Points in Paint

60, 8/25/2013, Tulsa @ Los Angeles (by Los Angeles)

Fewest Points in Paint

12, 7/6/2013, Seattle @ Washington (by Seattle)

Most Lead Changes in a Game

22, 7/10/2013, San Antonio @ Phoenix - San Antonio wins 88-80

Most Ties in a Game

16, 7/10/2013, San Antonio @ Phoenix, 6/19/2013 Minnesota @ Phoenix - Minnesota wins 80-69

The WNBA: Approved by males!

I don't quite know what to think of when I read articles called "I Went to a WNBA Basketball Game".  Dave Schilling's article over at VIBE appears to be desperately in search of a theme and he finally ends it with this.

To everyone but the season ticket holders, the WNBA is the punchline to a crude joke. The only way to make the WNBA and other female professional sports feel more legitimate in the popular culture is for men to start respecting it. We have to actually treat it as equal to the men's game. Sure, there's no dunking and the passing is kind of sloppy, but these are the best female players in the world.  As long as women playing basketball remains a curiosity, the need for a bunch of absurd “entertainments” like dancing grandmas will continue. When the Ole Skool Crew is dead and no longer twerking at halftime, and Sparky the loveable mascot hangs up his sneakers, will the WNBA survive?

Every year, you get one of those breathless "I went to a WNBA game" articles written as if the author is 19th century British explorer telling his tales of finding the lost Temple of Pangle. 

The WNBA!  So foreign and mysterious!  Do they use a basketball?  Or do they bounce a giant hair scrunchy?  If a player breaks a nail, does play stop?  Are there women taller than six feet tall?  Who would have thunk that such a thing could happen in biology?  Do they wear uniforms or aprons?

There's a word in use called "mansplaining".  Someone called mansplaining "a delightful mixture of privilege and ignorance."  A guy, always a guy, takes some topic - regardless of whether or not he knows what the hell he's talking about - and simply assumes that his female target is completely ignorant of it and then explains it.  You know, like explaining rain to a four-year old.  Double mansplaining if the topic is something you might assume that women have pretty strong opinions about, like feminism or birth control.  "Superior explains to inferior" is generally the theme.

Initially, I thought this article was a step forward.:  where some self-appointed gatekeeper says, "It is okay to like X.  Go with God, my children, and like X".  But I had a feeling of uneasy until I figured it out.  Rather, this is a mansplaining article that avoids that whole talking-to-women issue.  His target audience is men, and his message is, "Guys, clearly this WNBA needs male help to survive!  We need to give those WNBA ballers some basic respect while we teach them how to properly entertain their (male) fans." (*)

I don't know if female fans of the WNBA are to feel flattered or infuriated.  I suspect that this has happened to them more than once.  They probably just nod, smile, mark a tally on some hidden ledger, and try to get on with the rest of the day.

______

(*)  Dave Schilling's main issue with the WNBA's in-game entertainment is that *he* doesn't like it.

Erika and the first round of the playoffs

According to an article from SporTV in Brazil, Erika will not be going to the FIBA Americas competition.  She will be with the club during the playoffs:

The translated link is here:

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=pt&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fsportv.globo.com%2Fsite%2Feventos%2Fcopa-america-de-basquete%2Fnoticia%2F2013%2F09%2Fnos-playoffs-da-wnba-erika-fica-fora-da-copa-america-muito-triste.html

I am very sad not to be with my companions in a league so important that define our trip to the World Championship in Turkey. I would love to be with them at this time and help you in my power, as I always did. Unfortunately, this time you can not leave here, because this same time I will be competing in the playoffs by the Atlanta Dream.

Thus Endeth the Regular Season

We've ended the regular season, and the playoffs and championships should be decided by mid-October.

I'm going to give the last game of the season, Atlanta @ San Antonio, all of the attention that Atlanta seemed to give to it, which is slim to none.  The most interesting stats that come out of this game are the time played stats:

Jasmine Thomas - 32:06
Alex Bentley - 30:37
Courtney Clements - 29:29
Le'coe Willingham - 28:14
Ruth Riley - 24:13
Aneika Henry - 20:38
Erika de Souza - 13:59
Tiffany Hayes - 13:37
Angel McCoughtry - 7:08

Aside from Alex Bentley, this is almost the reverse order of the importance of each member of the Atlanta Dream to the organization.  I suspect that Thomas, Clements, and/or Willingham aren't going to be around next season.  Probably more than that.

I predicted in an earlier post that the Dream would finish 18-16.  Came close.  17-17, tied with Washington.  Actually, this is our (technically) worst season since 2008.

2008:  4-30
2009:  18-16
2010:  19-15
2011:  20-14
2012:  19-15
2013:  17-17

And even with all that, we still finished second in the Eastern Conference.  We have no clue yet as to when or if Erika de Souza is going to take off for the FIBA Americas tournament.  This sets up the following matches:

Chicago vs. Indiana:  With Katie Douglas back, Indiana is almost a different team.  However, they're still banged up.  Unless Chicago's inexperience gets the best of them/Lin Dunn gives a master class in coaching, Chicago will probably be good enough to advance.

Atlanta vs. Washington:  If Erika de Souza is out for all of these, it's 2 and out for Atlanta.  We can't win without post players.

We are 2-2 against the Mystics.  One win came when Lyttle was on the roster, so we're more like 1-2, and of those three games without Lyttle the Mystics stole a home game from us.

This one could go to three games.  Almost impossible to predict.  Expect that McCoughtry will put the team on her back and get us past the first round in Game 3 if it comes to that.  If we lose Game 1 at home, this could be reallly short, so whoever wins Game 1 should take the series.

Minnesota vs. Seattle:  Seattle didn't win a game against the Lynx all year, even during a bizarro scheduling fluke when they played three straight games against them.  Minnesota to advance.

Los Angeles vs. Phoenix:  Discount that last game of the regular season.  Sparks are 7-3 in their last 10, Mercury are 6-4.  The only one I won't predict.

September 13, 2013: Atlanta @ Chicago

New article up on Swish Appeal, so give it some love:  Dream PR reached out to me and asked if I'd interview Alton Byrd, so I sent him a list of questions.  He got back around on those questions real fast, and I was generally pleased with what I got back.

Here it is.  Read it and enjoy.

I never expect an interview subject to tell me everything anyway.  "So, are you guys making any money?  Is Angel locker room poison?  What happened with Marynell?"  If you don't think you're going to get an honest answer, what would be the point in asking it?  I don't really believe in "gotcha" questions. 

But if someone wants to talk off the record....

(* * *)

Weird situation over the weekend regarding the final weekend of the regular season. 

* Chicago and Minnesota play tonight to determine which team has home field advantage throughout the entire playoffs.  Both teams would be tied for best record if Chicago wins and Chicago would have a 2-0 record against Minnesota head to head. If Minnesota wins, they have the best overall record period.  Chicago comes into the game on the road and back-to-back, having just played Atlanta, so if the Sky beat the Lynx you can't say that Chicago doesn't deserve home court advantage.

* Atlanta is at 17-16 and Indiana and Washington are tied 16-17.  None of those teams play each other again.  So -

-- if all three teams finish 17-17, then we look at the combined head-to-head involving all three teams.  Atlanta's record vs. the other two teams is 6-3 (3-1 vs Indiana, 3-2 against Washington).  Indiana's record is 3-5 (1-3 vs. Atlanta, 2-2 against Washington).  Washington's is 4-5 (2-3 vs. Atlanta, 2-2 vs. Indiana). This would put Washington in third place and Indiana in fourth.  So a Dream loss and a Washington victory clinches third for the Mystics.

-- if Atlanta wins and only Indiana and Washington are tied...well, Indiana and Washington are tied 2-2 against each other, so we look at conference record.  Indiana has an 11-10 conference record compared to 9-12 for Washington.  There's no way Washington can make that up in one game.

So:

Atlanta loses, Washington wins - Washington is third, Indiana is fourth
Atlanta loses, Washington loses - Indiana is third, Washington is fourth
Atlanta wins, both Indiana and Washington win or lose - Indiana is third, Washington is fourth
Atlanta wins, Washington wins, Indiana loses - Washington is third, Indiana is fourth
Atlanta wins, Indiana wins, Washington loses - Indiana is third, Washington is fourth

* The only other scenario left is whether or not Tulsa or San Antonio finishes last.  Both come into the weekend with an 11-22 record.  They split the season series 2-2.  Tulsa has a 7-14 record in conference (they play Seattle in their final game) with San Antonio at 7-15 (they play Atlanta).

* Tulsa wins, San Antonio wins ?  Tulsa has the 8-14 conference record and takes fifth place.
* Tulsa wins, San Antonio loses ?  Tulsa has the better W-L record and takes fifth.
* Tulsa loses, San Antonio wins ?  San Antonio has the better W-L record and takes fifth.
* Tulsa loses, San Antonio loses ?  Both teams have the same W-L record, the same record against each other and the same conference record at 7-15.  We then go to best winning percentage against all teams with at least a .500 record.  But we don't know if Indiana or Washington will have a  .500 record or not, so it becomes very, very messy at that point.

Assuming both teams lose, then Tulsa's record against the teams that finish with a .500 or better record is 7-15.  San Antonio's is 6-16.  Since neither team has beaten either Indiana or Washington - the two "wild cards" in figuring out who finishes .500 or not since a Tulsa loss against Seattle boots the Storm into .500 territory and makes their games count - then it doesn't matter what happens in the East.  Tulsa takes fifth and San Antonio is in the cellar.

(Whew.  I really didn't want to go any further.  The next two levels are "head to head point differential", where the Silver Stars are way behind after a 98-65 thumping at home by the Shock where Riquna Williams exploded for 51 points, and then "coin flip").

(* * *)


Here is Atlanta's record broken down into home, away, and close (<= 5 point differential)

Home:  13-4
Away:  4-12
Close:  1-5

When you're 1-5 in close games, something's wrong.  Don't be fooled by Atlanta's second place finish and home round advantage, that advantage comes from Sancho Lyttle and Indiana suffering the injury bug early in the season.  Now we don't have Sancho Lyttle and Katie Douglas is back.  Bottom rail on top, as they say.

It's not just that the Dream's close-game record is 11th in the league - only Tulsa at 1-8 is worse, and Klop's job might be in jeopardy - but the hopeless Liberty are 5-11 on the road, better than Atlanta.  My friend is back to calling for Senor Fred's head after last night.

Sometimes you can break a game down by stats, and sometimes you can't.  Chicago is deeper than we are, that's why they're #1 and we know it.  We only lost by five to a tough Sky team on their home court.  But we led for most of that game, and as late as 4:21 we were leading in that game.  Then we found a way to lose it.  McCoughtry went 0-for-6 and when your volume shooter ain't shooting, there you go.

There really wasn't a need for volume shooting.  You're up by two with 4:21 to go.  If you've got ten more shots to take, why is McCoughtry taking six of them?  (De Souza and Hayes split the other four.)   The McCoughtry of the first half of the season would have moved the ball around, but in this game the Dream had 12 assists and McCoughtry only had one of them.  I can't prove it statistically but McCoughtry has reverted to her free-shooting ways.

If we were down by five, I could understand it.  In that case, why not put the ball in the hands of your gunner and fire away?  Losing by two or twenty doesn't make much of a difference. 

Does this team have heart?  Because right now, I just see a team that cracks when things get tough.

So Senor Fred can open the first envelope in his desk.  He can claim that we're still making the transition from the Meadors Era, but he can't claim that in 2014.  And he only has two more envelopes left in the desk.  The first one says, "Make personnel changes" and the second one says "Prepare three envelopes."

Player Ejections as of 9/13/2013

Tina Charles, 7/6/2013
Matee Ajavon, 7/10/2013
Candace Parker, 9/12/2013

Atlanta @ Connecticut; Phoenix @ Chicago

I missed most of Atlanta @ Connecticut last night.  Here's a tip - don't eat two pork chops and two Pink Lemonade cupcakes after a long day of work before lying down on the coach to watch a game.  You'll be in a coma in the middle of the first quarter.

I managed to catch the end moments of Atlanta vs. Connecticut in a real back and forth. 

Angel McCoughtry said it best after this game:

“Forget the playoffs right now. If we don’t win a game like this, I’m not even worried about the playoffs. What is the point of going to the playoffs if we can’t win on the road?”
...
"We have to figure it out, we have to be better at something. We turned the ball over too much. It was all mental errors. We need to focus and try to figure this out. We keep talking about being in the playoffs, but we can’t have the mentality that we are in the playoffs and lose our last three games. We have to go in the playoffs with a winning mentality and the momentum of winning because there is no point of going if we are not going to get past the first round and make it to a championship.”

I definitely agree.  This is going to be a soul-searching type of off-season.  I'd like to see us get to another WNBA Finals but I am very pessimistic about that.  I'm very pessimistic that we'll even get out of the first round.

A friend of mine keeps posting that "Fred Williams has to go!"  Well, this is Year One, give the man a chance before summoning the firing squad.  But here are a couple of ugly facts:

* The Dream are 1-4 in games decided by five points or less.  The only team worse than Atlanta is Tulsa at 1-8, where Coach Klop is hanging on to his job by his fingernails.  He'll probably stay given what he was to work with in Tulsa, but Williams has less of an excuse.

* The Dream are 4-11 on the road.  The only teams worse on the road than Atlanta are lottery teams:  Connecticut, San Antonio and Tulsa.  Even the lowly Liberty are 5-10 on the road.  

As Count Floyd would say, "Prettty scarrry, eh kids?"  I suspect that Julie Plank is out somewhere buying a new whiteboard and that the DFO is trying to figure out whether they hang with Williams for the purpose of keeping McCoughtry happy or if they promote Plank to HC before some other team grabs her a la Carol Ross.

Given the DFO's past history, Brock or Loeffler (probably Loeffler, I suspect that Brock is the good cop to Loeffler's bad cop) need to call up McCoughtry on the phone and ask her what she thinks of Julie Plank.  My theory (no proof) is that the DFO would lie down in front of train tracks before displeasing McCoughtry enough to jump bail on the team.

Gonna be a realllly interesting off season.

(* * *)

Game Two (what I saw of it due to my coma) was Phoenix-Chicago, a real nail biter.  The Merc staying in it despite not having either Taurasi or Taylor shows you what a great job Russ Pennell is doing.  Men's basketball's loss is women's basketball's gain.  I don't know how he feels about coaching women for a career, but given this small sample size of games he should give it some serious thought.  (Even though I'm opposed to male HCs.  I'll be unopposed to it when female HCs start coaching men's teams.)

But Delle Donne made the buzzer beater and ended the game.  Chicago's front office probably creamed their pants when they saw that.  Big Syl for MVP, Delle Donne for Rookie of the Year.  Give Pokey Chatman Coach of the Year and you have the trifecta.

I had written a Swish Appeal article on Coach of the Year.  If you don't believe in that math jazz, one way to tell a good coach is to ask the question:  "can they win games even with substandard players"?   Brian Agler lost both Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson and he took the Storm to the playoffs.  As my friend who is sour on Williams says, "If Brian Agler coached the Dream, we'd be conference champions."

Who McCoughtry Likes to Pass To

Even though McCoughtry passed the ball around a lot more than she used to - at least in the first half of the year - it makes you wonder, given that she is actually the person that Tweeted this pic.

“Do you know what that is?” a mic’d up Auriemma called out to McCoughtry, the WNBA’s scoring leader. “Do you know what a pass is?” he said with a laugh. “Angel wouldn’t even pass you the ketchup at lunch time. She’d say, I don’t get paid to pass, I get paid to shoot.”

Owning a WNBA Team

A lot has been said about the owners of the WNBA, but not about how they came around to owning their teams, much less what the actual ownership of a WNBA team actually entails.  The WNBA (and the individual teams) keeps those secrets more tightly wrapped than The Da Vinci Code.  You would have to be a globe-trotting Tom Hanks to figure out what it means to own a WNBA team before getting your feet wet.

But let's say that despite that, you want to own one.  How hard would it be?

The very first question is does the WNBA want another team?  Previously, I would have said "yes".  At the turn of the century, the WNBA was as big as 16 teams.  When a league expands, it sends the message that owning a WNBA team must be worth something...else why would people be wanting to join the league?  However, under the Laurel Richie regime there's been a real resistance to making the league any larger.  Maybe if you bought a lot of Girl Scout cookies, she might change her mind.


The next question is probably going to be who is the owner?  Having 1,000 of your closest friends ponying up $10K each won't get you there.  I don't know the NBA By-Laws, but community ownership of teams has been informally banned.  The NBA - and by extension, the W - wants moguls who own teams, not represent them.  Why?  Because the dream of the W (and its owners) is that fifty years down the line, WNBA teams will be so valuable that they can be used to hold cities hostage.  "Give us a new stadium or we'll move the Storm!"  Laughable now, maybe not so funny in fifty years. 

That's every owner's dream.  Clout.  Community owned teams, even those from an extended community, can't be easily moved.  Not going to happen.

(Note:  don't worry about having a sad-looking financial background.  Credit score only 500?  Working at a Renaissance Faire?  No problem!  The W gave the Houston Comets to Koch, and he was one bill collector short of wearing suspenders and a barrel.)

All right.  Let's say that you make all of the shares of stock non-voting, or put the team in a blind trust or something acceptable to the W. 

Next question:  what can we get from you?  The WNBA will tell you a lot of crap about how the cost of a franchise is $10 million dollars.  I wouldn't believe any of that.  Ron Terwilliger got his for a $2 million down payment.  You want to get one of those deals where the cash is (theoretically) ladled out every year to the W instead of arriving in the secret W bank vaults in one lump sum.  That way, when you have a bad year - and you'll probably have one - you go to President Richie with your pockets turned out and you moan, "Laurel, it's either pay you or fold the franchise."  Richie nods, and you get another try.  (But if there's another expansion, expect Ms. R to ask for the money that you owe her, or your team will be moved.)  The real question is are you willing to keep the franchise alive?

Okay.  Ownership is lined up. A sweet purchase deal is lined up where the W can announce some imaginary sum.  The next question is where do you stick this WNBA team?

My suggestion:  forget the South.  The South is a death zone for basketball, and that includes men's basketball.  The South was colonized by college football decades ago and nothing has been able to loosen that death grip, not baseball, and to some degree not even the NFL.

You don't want to put a team in a place where a previous team up and died.  Miami, Orlando, Cleveland, Charlotte, Salt Lake City, Portland, Detroit.  You might be able to resuscitate Sacramento, they're dying for some pro ball.  Houston might be a harder sell, their fans have been spoiled by four WNBA championships.  If Houston, don't call this team "the Comets" unless you're as serious as death about turning it into a winner, and fast.

You obviously don't want to go close to an existing team.  San Francisco is spoken for, the WNBA's perpetual reserve city, even though women's basketball to paraphrase Frisco del Rosario has never been more than a curiosity in San Francisco.  Forget New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.  Where?  Where?

This part of the equation is much debated.  You need a fairly forward looking place that isn't hostile to the very idea of women being out of the kitchen, or women possibly kissing other women when no one is looking. 

San Diego might be a good idea - it's on the west coast, and the west has definitely been more receptive to the WNBA than the east.  Phoenix, Seattle, San Antonio, Los Angeles, most of the WNBA's teams with big fan followings are western teams.  Boston is conservative, but there are a lot of forward-looking college kids there who love basketball. 

Once you get a city, the next problem is an arena.  Furthermore, it has to be a "pro arena" or something like one.  This isn't the ABL where you could get away with playing at a local college.  If you end up in a city that has a NBA team, you'll probably be nudged into using that arena as your WNBA arena.

Bill Byrne, the president of the Women's Professional Basketball League - the first league that tried to exist as a women's pro league, from 1978 to 1981 - said that three things would kill a league.  Those things are player's pay, travel, and arena costs.  Players pay will never get too much out of control.  The WNBA has a salary cap and another team can't spend you into oblivion.  Frankly, the players are (somewhat) grateful to even have an American pro league, but with European clubs paying six figure salaries to the first players off WNBA benches prices might be driven up - you never can tell. Travel can't get too much out of control, because the collective bargaining agreement between the league and the players defines everything down to the daily meal money. 

The arena costs are another problem.  The big questions are how much is it going to cost you a night and what slice of the pie will you get?  There are bigger slices of the pie than just the gate - how much you can get in ticket money?  There's parking and concessions.  If you get a deal like Atlanta has, you're screwed - it costs about $10 to park at a WNBA game and the Dream gets none of that.  Likewise, they don't get a slice of the concession business, either.  Your bargaining position is constricted:  the WNBA wants you playing in a big modern arena, and the arena owners know it and they're going to jack you up if they can.

With all of that in mind, you're probably going to make somewhere between $1.5-$2.5 million a year - but you're going to lose between $2.5 million-$3.5 million.  Expect to lose about $2 million a year, average.  This is a very expensive toy, as any sports team is.  All sports teams are vanity purchases, and the WNBA even more so.  Yes, teams like the Cubs and the Yankees make money, but as one businessman said, there are easier ways to make money than owning a sports franchise.

That money is coming out of your pocket.  Yeah, the WNBA might get some assistance from the NBA but not $2 million a year for your team - contrary to popular belief, the NBA does not subsidize the W.  No NBA team is required as part of its ownership rules to contribute anything to the WNBA - any funds paid to the WNBA come out of the NBA's general fund and not out of ticket sales or anything an individual NBA franchise would raise on its own.  So forget asking your brother NBA team for a handout when things go south.

If you're really lucky - you could get a jersey sponsorship.  Those could be seven figures, but I wouldn't trust any number coming from the WNBA these days.  Even so, word on the street is that these jersey sponsorships have enough power to pretty much float a franchise out of the red if not into the black.  Note that only teams that have been around for a long, long time have them.  Phoenix, Los Angeles, New York - those teams are the only teams from 1997 that are still in their 1997 locations, and all of them have had jersey sponsorships, but only Phoenix has been able to hang on to theirs.  Seattle, Washington, and Indiana have also had the joy of wearing a name on their jersey that wasn't their home city's.

In the end, however, don't expect that owning a WNBA team will make you a big man (or woman) around your city.  Even in enlightened cities you can expect the sportswriters at the local daily paper to have an opinion that ranges between ignorant and outright hostile.  If your team is covered at all, it will be covered by the lower persons on the journalistic totem pole.  It won't make the local television news, which only has about five minutes or so devoted to sports.  You'll be lucky if they read the score on the late night news broadcast.

Most of the hardcore fans that follow your team will be very annoying.  They've followed women's basketball for years (some for decades, before the college game was even organized) and most have lived on a meager existence of failed promises and outright lies - they will live or die with your team, but expect your front office to take daily bashings on fan blogs and on RebKell.  Few of them expect WNBA management itself to deliver any truth, so if that's how they treat the main office, you can expect the same at your local franchise.  The rumor is that WNBA fans are like science fiction fans - they don't have much money to spend (many have families or are up in years, or both) and they want their stuff cheap. Any request for more moolah at the turnstiles will be met with a roar of rage.

The NBA won't cooperate with you when it comes to scheduling as the NBA season bleeds further and further into June with its playoffs.  FIBA Europe and the European clubs won't care much about the WNBA season, either, and they will expect your players - which they consider their players, by the way - to hop on a plane after last ball is bounced. 

If your team goes into the post-season, there's the very real possibility losing a home game because of some arena scheduling conflict.  In 2009, Sesame Street Live was scheduled at Philips Arena and the Dream had to find space in Gwinnett for Game 2 of their conference semi-final game against the Detroit Shock.  Not only was the Dream getting bumped by Elmo and his friends national news ("See?  Told you the WNBA was bush league!") but it gave the Atlanta sports shills a field day and the Dream's first playoff season came to an end on a "home court" that the players hadn't so much as visited.

So why would you ever enter this sort of thing?  You could just like the idea of owning a professional franchise, and the WNBA fit your pocketbook.  You could be a philanthropist, who wanted to give something back to the kids of the community and damn the losses.  You could like women's sports, or just women's basketball.

But if you own a WNBA franchise...I certainly love you.  And God shall bless you, because it looks like no one else will.

2013: Average Days Between Games by Opponents (So Far)

Even though only 31-32 games have been played this year by each of the WNBA teams, here are the numbers on average days between games by opponent:

ATL:  3.45
IND:  3.38
CHI:  3.03
CON:  3.19
NYL:  3.19
WAS:  3.22

LAS:  3.53
MIN:  3.47
PHO:  3.93
SAS:  3.31
SEA:  3.22
TUL:  3.12

Phoenix opponents have had the most days off before playing the Mercury.  Chicago's opponents have had the least days off before playing the Sky (in aggregate).

Is it better to have fewer days off when playing a team or a lot of days off.  If you're a WNBA coach, you'd like to play teams every two or three days.  A team playing the next day - with just one (1) day between games - will most likely lose, since back-to-back games take a real toll on a team.  But if a team starts getting into the 4+ days between games, then the only practice it gets is against each other, which is no substitute for actually playing opponents.

A week's worth of catch-up

It's good to be back after a long vacay.  Even though it wasn't much of a vacay.  I think my wife was pretty disappointed in Miami that all of her old south Florida friends didn't flock to see her - then again, it's been ten years since she was down there.

As for Dallas, I got to experience a sort of a toxic group of people that have a sort of weird dynamic - one narcissist, one laid-back person and a Type A personality all trying to co-exist with each other. The Type A personality would get bossy, the narcissist would try to make everything about her, and the mediator would try to mediate, with the three egging each other on to some new kind of unhappiness.  I was glad to be out of Dallas.

Next was catching the final home game of the Dream season, Phoenix @ Atlanta.  We lost that one, making me wonder if I'm some sort of team jinx as my arrival back in Atlanta snapped a three-game losing streak.  (The write-up is here.) 

I enjoyed talking to Russ Pennell, the head coach of the Mercury.  He's animated, he looks you right in the eye, he doesn't give the impression that talking to you is some horrible burden.  I did get to experience his sharp side, though.  I pointed out that Phoenix has the most technical fouls in the league.  (Griner got one for a tete-a-tete with de Souza.)  He answered quickly, "Not with me.  Not with me.  That was the other guy." 

He was absolutely right.  But he segued out of that awkward moment into a discussion of his efforts to bring those technical fouls down.  It was an uncomfortable question, but it turned out to be a fantastic answer. 

I got the chance to relax, then come home on Monday for jury duty.  Jury duty was extremely uneventful - show up at the courthouse and wait.  After four hours of waiting they decided they wouldn't need me and go home.  They've definitely upgraded things since I was there - how long ago?  Four years maybe?  The benches have been replaced with comfortable seating, but you still have to wait.

I got home and then wrote up another article for Swish Appeal, this time about my nominee for the WNBA Coach of the Year.  Give me click love and see it here.

(* * *)

Here's my hypothetical WNBA ballot.  All over but sending it in.


Most Valuable Player
1.  Sylvia Fowles, Chicago
2.  Candace Parker, Los Angeles
3.  Nneka Ogwumike, Los Angeles
4.  Maya Moore, Minnesota
5.  Tamika Catchings, Indiana

Defensive Player of the Year

Tamika Catchings, Indiana

Most Improved Player

Shavonte Zellous, Indiana

Sixth Woman

Jantel Lavender, Los Angeles

All First and Second Teams

F  Candace Parker, Los Angeles
F  Maya Moore, Minnesota
G  Diana Taurasi, Phoenix
G  Lindsay Whalen, Minnesota
C  Sylvia Fowles, Chicago

F  Tamika Catchings, Indiana
F  Nneka Ogwumike, Los Angeles
G  DeWanna Bonner, Phoenix
G  Lindsey Harding, Los Angeles
C  Brittney Griner, Phoenix

Rookie of the Year

Elena Delle Donne, Chicago

Kim Perrot Sportsmanship Award

Alana Beard, Los Angeles

Coach of the Year

Pokey Chatman, Chicago

Atlanta @ Chicago, 2013-08-31

I didn't get much of a chance to watch Atlanta @ Chicago on vacation.  By the time I got back to the room, Chicago was up by 20 points at the end of the third quarter and were going to stay that way.  After an amazing start, the Dream are flirting with the idea of falling below .500.

When we were 10-1, they were talking about Fred Williams being the Coach of the Year.  I'm sure all of that talk has disappeared by now.  He's fighting to hold the Dream together and to not get them rousted out of the first round.  (I doubt that New York can get the string of victories they'd need to get into the playoffs and with the Sun already eliminated, the Dream will get in just by a process of elimination.)

We should have Armintie Herrington back soon, but she can't provide much offense.  Angel McCoughtry's recent heel woes are a cause for concern.  Tiffany Hayes is day to day, depending on how much swelling is in her knee.

The big question marks are now Sancho and Erika.  Lyttle has shown no signs of returning to the court and reports from the Dream are hopeful but not hopeful enough.  A little bird tells me that de Souza is fighting a battle with the Brazilian national team to stay off the roster so she can help Atlanta but if the f@#ing Brazilians tell her to jump, she'll have to jump or kiss her Olympic medal hopes goodbye.  It could be that Atlanta gets rousted in the first round either by the veteran Fever or the hungry Mystics.

(* * *)

Recently, I had been thinking about starting a blog dedicated to Atlanta girls basketball.  The response I got from Twitter from an acquaintance was rather blunt:

NO....let the kids be kids, enough sleezy recruiting/scouting blogs out there. You're a good guy but most are NOT

So now I'm toying with three options:

1) follow the big college team over the summer - the loneliest job on earth.  It doesn't help that I really don't have much of a passion for them
2) follow Euroball over the winter, knowing that no one gives a rat's ass about Euroball - I have a duty to SA to write about things that people want to read about, and the stats on my Euroball articles indicated an interest of about zero
3) do the prep scene thing, taking the chance that I could end up in the company of a bunch of skeezeballs

What to do, what to do, what to do?