The WNBA Goes Right Back To Being Lame
Friday, July 25, 2008
I really thought that stunts like added retired players or really tall/short people was left in the minor leagues. Well apparently not. Two days after a brawl that gave the league more press than it's ever had, the WNBA decided 50 year old ESPN broadcaster Nancy Lieberman needed to play for a night.
HOUSTON (AP) -- Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman showed she still had one nifty pass left in her.Lieberman was once a great player, but come on WNBA. There was really NO ONE ELSE they could sign? This reeks of publicity stunt. The first real intense thing happens in your league in its history and you go and do something cheesy like this? I'm not saying that fighting should be highlighted, but it happens in Sports. The biggest knock on the WNBA was/is that the players are soft and Tuesday night showed that wasn't the case. After the ridiculous Mahorn "Peacemaker" suspension and this, I think the WNBA set a record time for losing validity.
The 50-year-old Lieberman had two assists, including a no-look pass in the closing minutes of the Detroit Shock's 79-61 loss to the Houston Comets on Thursday night.
Lieberman made a one-time only appearance in the Shock's first game since Tuesday night's bench-clearing melee with the Los Angeles Sparks.
Five Shock players were suspended and Cheryl Ford sustained a season-ending injury, prompting coach Bill Laimbeer to offer Lieberman a seven-day contract.
(P.S.- I would have pulled the video, but it's Friday and ultimately I don't think you really care.)
23 Comments:
I thought that Bill Veeck was dead?
Can we get the weekend MLB TV schedule post??
who said wnba is major league?
the funniest thing about the brawl was it didn't even make PTI... because there wasn't any PTI! LOL
Yeah yeah yeah....coming soon.
The Detroit Shock are so smart -- they sign her for a ROAD game..and then let her go.
Veeck wasn't that stupid to market something that another team would profit from it.
I read that the Shock was denying it was a gimmick, and that it was in the works well before the She-Brawl.
The real gimmick would have been for the Shock to have signed Nancy FOR the brawl. Having her fitty year-old ass taking out Candace Parker would have been huge for the league.
What is the WNBA?
HA! Morgan Wick just admitted to reading about the WNBA. All of you credibility just went to shit.
"HA! Morgan Wick just admitted to reading about the WNBA. All of you credibility just went to shit."
... says the man who commented - twice - on a WNBA post.
The WNBA is a joke. What are they trying to do here? I don’t understand this move. The WNBA will never be taken seriously if they let 50 year old women play basketball. I do feel that women should be given a chance to play basketball after college but the league has real problems. I can’t name five players who play in the WNBA or even five teams. The games are never on T.V.
The women’s college games are still much better.
/Insert Anna Deforge joke here
Was that rumor ever substantiated? I vaguely remember something written in SI some years ago.
Well, AA and Morgan Wick, it WAS in the news before the brawl. I read about it earlier this week. Get with it. You probably blew by the story because it was WNBA and now you jump their ass about it.
Didn't Lieberman choke an opposing player during a game? IIRC, it happened after Latrell. Late '90s?
If this "Lieberman to play for Shock" story was "in the news" last week, anonymous 6:21, why did ESPN still have Nancy Lieberman calling the Shock/Comets game for them? That release was dated Wednesday.
Hey, the WNBA isn't exactly the first league to pull something exactly like this. Gordie Howe kept coming back and coming back. The White Sox signed Minnie Minoso once every ten years so he could extend his bogus record for playing in the most different decades.
You may have other reasons for hating the WNBA, but don't pick on them for this. They are hardly alone in signing an old-timer for the sake of emotion, nostalgia, and a little publicity.
You think they would just have Rebecca Lobo come back and play a game for the Connecticut Sun.
At the least it would mean the game would actually sell out (and there wouldn't be more people at the slots than at the game).
the wnba has a hall of fame?
i guess dennis rodman couldn't find his wedding dress in time for the game.
"If this "Lieberman to play for Shock" story was "in the news" last week, anonymous 6:21, why did ESPN still have Nancy Lieberman calling the Shock/Comets game for them? That release was dated Wednesday."
Cause espn sucks. And you suck.
"Cause espn sucks. And you suck."
Oooh, good comeback. Is that what passes for great these days? Maybe that's "great" smack talk for the state of Ohio, but not here.
It's worse in Dallas. The sports radio stations treat her like she's the queen. I can't stand her, she makes me barf!
/Insert Anna Deforge joke here