About a week ago, the Washington Mystics won their first ever championship in franchise history. But the celebration didn’t last long because half of the team’s players are heading overseas for international play. Unfortunately, that’s the nature of the Women’s National Basketball Association and one of the reasons why players are asking for better pay.
In February of this year, Maya Moore, the WNBA’s most prolific player, announced she would sit out for the 2019 season to focus on herself, her family and her ministry.
To fans of the game, like myself, this may have seemed like the perfect setup for a Michael Jordan-like comeback.
In her eight-year career, Moore has already won four WNBA championships, two Olympic Gold Medals, two FIBA World Championship Gold Medals, a WNBA Finals and Regular-Season MVP, Rookie of the Year and achieved a host of other records and accolades. She’s always sported the No.23, the same number Jordan wore for most of his career; but, most notably, she was the first women’s basketball player to sign an endorsement deal with Nike’s Jordan Brand in 2011 at the beginning of her rookie season. So, if anyone could take a year off from the game and come back like she never left, it would be Maya… In an ideal world.
But, in reality, the face of the W taking off a year – in her prime – isn’t good news for fans or the league, especially knowing that Maya has shifted her focus to a laborious fight like criminal justice reform.
And it’s not like Maya sitting out was a difficult decision for her to make. She walked away from a league of players who are underpaid and undervalued. Continue reading “The State of the WNBA, Part 1”
Brittany Young 