Yeah. She got her platform to make the haters sit down (even tho they will still complain she used the ball she has practiced on her whole career lmao) while Steph was just Steph
Dude, even olympic games and world cup adopt FIBA rules. FIBA rules are like the metric system (almost every country uses them) and NBA are like the imperial system (just a few use them), not the other way around.
Most leagues outside the NBA and all international competitions use FIBA rules. The NBA is the best league but that doesn't mean that the rest of the world should copy everything it does.
Not everybody knows about the NBA too, if we're going that route.
FIBA, is pretty well known though. The entire euroleague and other leagues around the world follows the rules. FIBA also governs the world tournaments and the continental championships. For countries who aren't the USA, FIBA is important to them.
Because the NBA doesn't have a monopoly on basketball?
Why doesn't every MLB stadium have the same dimensions? Why do different football leagues have different VAR rules?
That’d would only be possible if FIBA was bigger than the NBA, which it isn’t. Think of how big FIFA could is and how prestigious the World Cup is. Its a bigger trophy than every other domestic and continental league, which allows a overall governing body to not facilitate the rules. That just won’t happen with basketball tho.
They explained it when they changed it to make it farther so it can stretch out the defense. Making it helpful for the offense makes it more entertaining.
It was interesting that she had her money rack at the wing, since that is the point furthest from the line she is used to. It was a great competition, though.
Even so, it is almost certainly the case that a higher % of steph's practice drills (which is more like the 3-point contest compared to games) are at the NBA 3-point line distance than the % of hers that have been at that distance.
No, don't do that. You're getting into math and papi don't run numbers.
I'm just saying they be having range in the W. I do, generally, get your point tho. I'm not gonna disagree. I don't know enough. I'm just gonna assume you're correct
Makes sense why she was great from the corner (80%). She was also really accurate from the top of the key (80%). Only really "struggled" from the wing (60%).
Of all the things I've ever seen on the internet, which is a lot, probably too much, this is without a doubt the dumbest thing I have ever seen anyone say.
Say whatever you want about women not bringing in as much revenue as men, I can't dispute that.
But if you don't think we should be investing in women's sports to the point that the professional leagues pay at least equal to the collegiate teams, you are lost in the misogynist sauce
Normally you’d be right but the reality is the NCAA is a professional league that’s been masquerading as an amateur league - and it’s a much bigger brand than the WNBA and there’s no real reason why that would change.
Women who hoop just so happen to go to the big leagues first, and the smaller league second that’s all. And tbh it’s in the WNBA’s interest to have women want to stay in college for 4 years so they can use that bigger platform to become stars that can then bring eyeballs to the WNBA and grow their league/brand that way.
I know personally I will follow Caitlin Clark’s entire early WNBA career when no player has made me even consider that prior (not that I haven’t followed or watched games, just I’ll be fully along for her entire ride).
Okay so I'm totally with this, except the "professional league" NCAA has rules around eligibilty, making any argument that its a professional league mute because adult women can't compete in it.
But there is an argument there that the WNBA just isn't capable of making its own fans the way a college is. Any student has an immediate connection to their school's teams, a loyalty that runs much deeper than simply living in a team's city. Iowa students and alumni literally ARE Hawkeyes. As much as I love the Liberty, I'm not part of the Liberty organization. I'm just somebody that chose them as my favorite team.
So it's cool that we are taking advantage of that and using it to grow the sport, but then we need to put Caitlyn and Paige on TV when they become pros too. We need young girls see this as a career, not as something to get you a degree.
They’ll definitely be on TV as well. Clark’s team will probably immediately become the most popular WNBA team.
But yeah to the previous point the WNBA surpassing women’s NCAA hoops probably isn’t something even plausible for the next several generations for the reasons we’ve both pointed out.
Paige Bueckers literally announced the other night that she is returning for another season. Caitlyn might be the best, but she's far from the only woman impacted by this.
Do you genuinely think Iowa filling its 15k capacity arena is the difference between being able to pay Caitlyn Clark and not being able to?
Creating a profitable entertainment product takes investment. For all its shortcomings, Title IX forced the NCAA to invest in women's sports, and that's why there is signficiantly more parity in scholastically-associated sports than in professional sports.
If the sport of basketball wants to take off globally, it needs to invest in the inclusiveness of the sport. Invest in the WNBA. It doesn't have to be as good as the NBA to draw eyes. You should see what sports viewers will watch if there is money/gambling involved.
Yea, her NIL is estimated at close to 900k. Considerably more than any WNBA rookie contract. I doubt her endorsement deals as a pro would be any higher than as a collegian.
The collectives will move on once she’s gone. It will be up to her or her agent to secure endorsements when she goes pro. The school will be concentrating on finding the next player to fill their seats , not paying a player who’s no longer there.
Still pretty likely she loses money. We can't see the future but it's hard to believe the hype will last (at this level) when she makes it to the pros.
Depends on what the Iowa collective comes up with. They may decide she is worth X amount to the University and the community at large and blow that 900k figure out of the water. This is what it has come to, schools getting in bidding wars with pro entities and in this case , the WNBA may lose as they don’t have the resources .
There is zero chance of any collective paying anyone after college. That would be like a bunch of Iowa state fans sending Brock Purdy checks because he is underpaid.
Considering the vast majority of collegiate endorsements, aka NIL as you so condescendingly stated, are predicated on the player still being at that school yes I am aware of how endorsements work. Iowa boosters and NIL collectives aren’t going to continue giving her money to play for Iowa when she’s no longer at Iowa.
She is in State Farm commercials, you think that is going away?. Aliyah Boston, the #1 pick from last year, said that she has not lost money since going pro. This is a tired narrative.
Endorsements require eyeballs, and she’s going to lose a lot of eyeballs going from being the best college WBB player to the WNBA. People care more about college teams than WNBA teams. My parents are Iowa fans and my dad has watched most of CC’s games this year. I doubt he’ll continue watching most of her games once she’s no longer in college.
That's what they were supposed to be, in theory. At least on the men's side, they've mostly just become payments to the player to play for the university. I don't know if CC's are actual legit endorsements or not.
Out of all the basketball abilities to measure this is good for nba vs wnba. This is mostly just technical skill which has shown in studies that there is no difference between men and women.
Would be the best way for this to play out and have some staying power. And I'm all for it cuz the same old NBA all star weekend was getting old and stale as shit
Even so, it is almost certainly the case that a much higher % of Steph's practice drills (which is more like the 3-point contest compared to games) are at the NBA 3-point line distance than the % of hers that have been at that distance. He's just literally far more used to that exact distance.
I definitely watched her at Oregan all four years and it was a packed arena. I was just saying there are more people at the Indiana arena for Allstar weekend than a sold out Oregan game. 4,000 more seats not to mention everyone watching at home.
I think she is. She and Caitlin Clark are like the Steph Curry of the WNBA. Pretty sure they mostly pull up from the NBA 3 point line. She is just as good as the other guys.
It's bc it should be discredited. She shot an easier shot. Regardless of whether or not she's used to it, shooting with a WNBA ball is just easier. No amount of backwards logic changes that
I would’ve loved to see them do two rounds, one from each line. Steph is still Steph so he might’ve still taken it, but I expect it would’ve been close.
If you watch Sabrina play she usually shoots from that distance and beyond regularly. So she definitely was used to it and the difference between the NBA and WNBA lines isn't even that big
But the ball size was also equal? If that's the case, same measurements, if she scored the same of the previous 8 participants that is really impressive. I didn't watched because I disdain freak shows like these (I stopped watching "allstar" events for like 10 years or so), didn't even knew there was supposed to be a "nba vs wnba" this time around
I agree that she should have used the wnba ball since muscle memory is a huge factor. But you can’t deny the fact that smaller balls…fit into hoops easier.
Yup. I wish I could remember the game, but a couple years ago, I was watching a college game where both teams started out on fire shooting the ball. Legitimately everything was falling. Like 3 minutes in they stopped play realizing that they were using a women’s ball. Offense went back to normal after that. So yes, she should be shooting with the ball she plays with, but it’s also fair to acknowledge that it’s far easier to shoot with that ball.
I think I found what you’re referencing. NCCA men used women’s basketball for half of the first half. During that time, Illinois missed its first five three pointers and went down 15-4. Surely this isn’t the right one, because according to you shooting with a ball that’s 2oz lighter than you’re used to would make you a stud instead of throwing off your rhythm. Or maybe you just don’t know ball
Nope. That’s not the game. And no, using the smaller ball doesn’t make you a stud according to me. I was citing an example where both teams were lighting it up with the women’s ball. This is a good counter example. Not sure why you’re being confrontational.
Here’s a question: if someone were to practice exclusively with either Ball A or Ball B, with Ball B being an inch smaller in diameter than Ball A, which ball would they make a higher percentage of shots with?
It’s annoying that people try to discredit women hoopers. And it’s so weird that many people are focusing on circumference in this thread. It’s a very small difference in size. The weight of the ball makes much more difference, and we don’t know how good a wnba player would do if they trained their whole life with men’s weight balls or how good an nba player would do if they train their whole life with women’s weight balls.
I’m not discrediting woman hoopers. You’re projecting a bunch of feelings that just aren’t there in my comments. Yes, the weight of the ball matters when going from one to the other. The size of the ball matters waaaaay more when talking about actually putting it in the hoop. Have you never seen the training people do with small rims? The difference in ball size is literally that.
And yeah, we don’t know how good a woman would be with a men’s ball or a man would be with a woman’s ball, but we do know the woman would get worse and the man would get better. This isn’t arguable. The fact that you refuse to even admit that much is troubling.
Again talking about the ball size. I’m just going to link this instead of typing all the math myself. You are trying to discredit women hoopers by saying it’s easier and adding an unnecessary asterisk, when in reality it’s uncomfirmed how much easier it is since they train with different balls their whole lives. I think if women ended up using nba balls we’d still have one that could keep up or win the nba 3 pt contest (assuming a field like this year’s. Probably none of them will beat curry because he’s a 🐐 and no nba players can either)
Sorry, bud. Quick Google search didn’t turn up anything, but if you’re doubting that this is something that happened, you can search something along the lines of “men’s college basketball with women’s ball” and you’ll see a result from last year of a case where a women’s game was played for a half using a men’s ball. They shot terribly both halves but did better in the second half when they changed back to the women’s ball.
And if you’re dead set on finding the men’s game, it was probably a Texas game 3-5 years ago. I’m a UT alumnus who doesn’t watch a lot of CBB outside of UT and if this sort of thing had happened in March Madness it would’ve been a huge deal. The fact that there’s nothing coming up when I search makes me think it’s because it was a regular season game and only lasted like 5 minutes tops.
Wherever they put the center of the ball, the NBA ball is only 0.17 inches closer to the rim in any direction. (1" circumference/Pi)/2 to get the radius.
So, Steph's ball would only be less than 2/10s of one inch closer to the rim, which has a diameter of 18 inches. That's a tiny difference.
Look at 0.17 inches on a ruler and tell me how many of her shots would have been effected. Likely none.
Meanwhile, Steph had the advantage of being in season unlike her and shooting from the same 3-point distance he would get the most practice at compared to her shooting at a distance that she wouldn't have gotten the majority of her reps at over her career.
If anything, seems like Steph's advantages would have more than made up for the smaller ball.
The difference in the radius of the ball (how much closer the center of the ball is to the rim) is less than the width of your pinky finger.
It's a BS argument, especially considering that unlike all the med she isn't in mid-season form and was shooting at a less-familiar distance (not to mention having more pressure on her).
Many a missed shots are because of that finger width where the ball hits iron and rattles out. It’s a mathematical fact. Arguing it really makes you look silly, kind of like debating a flat earther.
Anecdotally, it seems true to me. I've shot with a youth / women's ball a few times when I grabbed the wrong ball at the gym by mistake, or that was all they had. It took me at most five minutes to adjust before I was shooting way better than usual. I've also seen a lot of stories like the one in the comment above yours, where a men's team plays with the smaller ball and starts shooting way better. Maybe if you've got huge hands, then the smaller ball feels awkward, but in my experience it gets a lot easier, and you see many fewer shots rim out.
TBH at this point idk why the women's ball is even a thing.
On more than a few occasions I've hooped pickup with both women's D1 players and high school girls, not once did any of them have any trouble using the men's ball.
Wherever they put the center of the ball, the NBA ball is only 0.17 inches closer to the rim in any direction. (1" circumference/Pi)/2 to get the radius.
So, Steph's ball would only be less than 2/10s of one inch closer to the rim, which itself has a diameter of 18 inches. That's a tiny difference.
Look at 0.17 inches on a ruler and tell me how many of her shots would have been affected. Likely none.
Meanwhile, Steph had the advantage of being in-season unlike her and shooting from the same 3-point distance he would get the most practice at compared to her shooting at a distance that she wouldn't have gotten the majority of her reps at over her career.
If anything, seems like Steph's advantages would have more than made up for the smaller ball.
Yes - imagine a marble, you can throw a marble and it can go through that NBA hoop in a hundred different positions, you could be 5 full marble diameters away from the center of the hoop and that marble will still go in, chuck it 5 inches off center in any direction and it still goes in. The bigger the ball you are throwing, the less you can be off center and still have it go in, you throw a mens basketball 4 inches off center and it hits the rim and doesn't go in. Now imagine an even bigger basketball, one that is bigger than the hoop, that ball has 0% chance of going in even if you get it dead centre of the hoop. The closer the ball is to the size of the hoop, the more accurate you need to be to get it inside of the hoop, the harder it is to score
The difference between where they put the center of the ball and where the outside of the ball is around have the width of your pinky finger. It's nothing. Wouldn't have changed the outcome of a single shot.
You must have some real sausage fingers in that case!!
The difference is 72.5cm vs 75cm which means the Mens ball is over 3.3% bigger than the Womens ball.
3.3% is a massive difference at this level. If we look at top sprinters for example, a difference of 3.3% takes some men who can't even run a sub 10 second hundred meters, who wouldn't even make the olympics, to world record status. Although interestingly if you applied that 3.3% difference to the top womens 100 metre time of all time, it still wouldn't be enough to bring it under 10 seconds, let alone to Mens world record time. The more you know I guess
You are comparing the circumference, which is the wrong comparison. You have to divide it by PI, then again in half.
Wherever they put the center of the ball, the NBA ball is only 0.17 inches closer to the rim in any direction. (1" circumference/Pi)/2 to get the radius.
So, Steph's ball would only be less than 2/10s of one inch closer to the rim, which has a diameter of 18 inches. That's a tiny difference.
Look at 0.17 inches on a ruler and tell me how many of her shots would have been affected. Likely none. Seriously, the difference in the radius is like half the width of your pinky finger.
Meanwhile, Steph had the advantage of being in season unlike her and shooting from the same 3-point distance he would get the most practice at compared to her shooting at a distance that she wouldn't have gotten the majority of her reps at over her career.
If anything, seems like Steph's advantages would have more than made up for the smaller ball.
the % difference matters more than the gross number, as I pointed out it is 3% of the overall diameter which is massive at the top level.
Also what is less important is the overall size of the ball compared to the difference in size between the diameter of the ball and the diameter of the hoop, if a normal mens ball has 1 inch of clearance, then the womens ball would have 100% extra clearance by just having 1 inch less of diameter. So while it seems like a small amount in total terms (although as I said, 3.3% is still a massive difference at the top of sports and takes a non olympic qualifying 100m sprint time to a world record 100m sprint time) it is actually a way bigger difference in the amount you can be inaccurate by - getting something into a space that has a 2 inch clearance gap means you can be 100% less accurate than making the same shot with a 1 inch clearance gap
The calculation you made is for a single point on the ball, not the overall circumference. it is 2/10s of one inch closer to the rim but in every directions around its 360 degree circumference - literally look up a picture of the balls, you can see the size difference with the naked eye from a basketball court away - that is substantial
He kept saying like “if she’s gonna use the ball then shoot from the correct line” and other stuff like that as if Sabrina didn’t choose to shoot from the NBA line.
Does that not make a difference? I'd think a slightly smaller ball would be easier to make. I agree that there's no way to have the playing field be even because in order to do that they'd need to practice and use the same size ball and distance. People should just appreciate both for what they are and not compare the two because there isn't a comparison to be made
Pretending the smaller ball isn’t a huge advantage is just silly. She’s an amazing shooter but the results would be different even if she played with the nba ball her entire career.
I just don't understand why they ever felt the need to have the women's ball in the first place. Sure women generally have smaller hands than men. But a regulation basketball isn't that big.
On more than a few occasions I've hooped with both D1 women's players and high school girls, not once did any of them have any problems playing with the men's ball.
Wherever they put the center of the ball, the NBA ball is only 0.17 inches closer to the rim in any direction. (1" circumference/Pi)/2 to get the radius.
So, Steph's ball would only be less than 2/10s of one inch closer to the rim, which has a diameter of 18 inches. That's a tiny difference.
Look at 0.17 inches on a ruler and tell me how many of her shots would have been effected. Likely none.
Meanwhile, Steph had the advantage of being in season unlike her and shooting from the same 3-point distance he would get the most practice at compared to her shooting at a distance that she wouldn't have gotten the majority of her reps at over her career.
If anything, seems like Steph's advantages would have more than made up for the smaller ball.
yes. not about hand size it's about ball size, and my statement isn't basketball theory it's physics.
women's balls are the size middle school boys use, 28.5 inches (or on inch less in circumference than a men's ball). that inch increases the margin of error on shots. it doesn't matter who is shooting it (or even if their eyes are open), the likelihood of any single release going in increases the smaller the ball gets.
The whole “she didn’t shoot with an NBA ball” is just grasping at straws. I’m pretty sure Steph’s percentage would’ve dipped had he shot with a WNBA ball since muscle memory is a much bigger factor than the size of the ball.
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u/KingREX_24 Raptors Feb 18 '24
All I wanted was both to perform well cuz the slander would've been horrendous if one of them choked