NBA vs WNBA

My part of our presentation had to do with the overall general differences between the NBA and WNBA.  These differences are often more obvious than others.  The men’s ball is slightly larger then the women’s ball and the three point line in the men’s game extends three more feet out then in the WNBA.  The shot clock in the NBA is 24 seconds while being 30 seconds in the WNBA.  It still doesn’t make much sense to me that in the college game women have a shorter shot clock then the men do, then you jump up to the NBA and they lose 11 seconds, and the women just lose 5.  The NBA also still has the 10 second back court violation while within the last five years the WNBA and women’s college basketball has discontinued it. 

I also touched on current WNBA players and women’s basketball coaches and their opinions on women playing in the NBA:

"If you could put me in a machine that could make me 6-foot-5 and as strong as they were, I could play in the NBA," Taurasi said (Smith, 2011, paragraph 3).

"If they could, they would," said Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer, who coached some of the best players ever as the U.S. Olympic coach in 1996. "If it's all about physical strength, women simply do not have the muscle mass that men have. If we are talking about strength and speed and jumping ability ... that's not happening” (Smith, 2011, paragraph 8). 

"Never in my lifetime will a woman be able to compete in a men's sport -- nor should they want to -- where there is a physical comparison between the two," Auriemma said. "Anything where it's my strength versus your strength, I don't think it can happen“ (Smith, 2011, paragraph 10). 

Overall I thought it was interesting to learn some of the overall differences between the NBA and WNBA.

-Alyssa Robinson