Caitlin and Lebron physicality comparison entering the association

[hif in fairfax]

Interested in peoples thoughts on this.

If Lebrons career started in the 80's/90's with the officiating of that era and physical play would he have had the same struggles caitlin is facing now with the same type of officiating and play presently in the W??? They both were not physically imposing as other players entering their Rookie seasons.

Was it a smart move to clean up the physical play before stars like Lebron entered the league and we're able to showcase their talents earlier making the NBA a more exciting watch??

Maybe the WNBA should follow the NBAs lead get their heads out of their ass and realize they have young superstars entering the league that play a style people actually enjoy watching.

The most popular sport in the country the NFL realized nobody wants to watch 3rd string quarterbacks starting games and changed the rules and the game is more popular than ever.

Caitlin hasn't done the WNBA any favors by exposing the style of play and the thought process of whoever is in charge. They have been awarded a cash cow and they're pissing it down their legs

 

[Fan In Black]

Lebron was a physical specimen. 6'9 250 lbs and off the charts athetisism entering the league as an 18 year old. As big and fast as anyone ever entering the league.

 

[RayRay3454]

Lebron may play soft, but he was was officially 6'7" 245 at the draft combine so he was bigger, stronger, and more athletic than almost all small forwards.

 

[F5n5]

I have the very strong opinion that the WNBA should be much more cleaner than the men's game... instead it is much more physical.
It's very strange what is happening

 

[Fan In Black]

a better comparison would be Curry entering in the 80s and 90s. Lebron would have been a unicorn of size and athetisism in any era.

 

[Beattheohiostate]

Interested in peoples thoughts on this.

If Lebrons career started in the 80's/90's with the officiating of that era and physical play would he have had the same struggles caitlin is facing now with the same type of officiating and play presently in the W??? They both were not physically imposing as other players entering their Rookie seasons.

Was it a smart move to clean up the physical play before stars like Lebron entered the league and we're able to showcase their talents earlier making the NBA a more exciting watch??

Maybe the WNBA should follow the NBAs lead get their heads out of their ass and realize they have young superstars entering the league that play a style people actually enjoy watching.

The most popular sport in the country the NFL realized nobody wants to watch 3rd string quarterbacks starting games and changed the rules and the game is more popular than ever.

Caitlin hasn't done the WNBA any favors by exposing the style of play and the thought process of whoever is in charge. They have been awarded a cash cow and they're pissing it down their legs

LeBron looked like he was 30 years old when he was in high school. Go back and look at the magazine covers. At around 6-7 and 250 he wasn't exactly a shrinking violet.

CC looks like a normal human. She looks like almost all basketball players--male or female--looked until weight training hit the sport hard around 20 years ago. Check out YouTube and watch college and NBA videos from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s. Pete Marvich was downright skinny, but he sure as hell could do anything with a basketball. Look at the great Iowa teams and you'll see tall guys, but you won't see bulging muscles on anybody. Long and lean . . . that was what basketball players--and most baseball players--looked like for the vast majority of each sport's history. Hell, even football players generally played at their own natural strength and weight until the 1980s or so. In the 1970s, e.g., Iowa football had ONE universal weight machine in the lobby of the locker room. That was the extent of the weight training program.

Anyway, CC is a throwback physically compared to the many thugs she faces in the WNBA, many of whom will be great as bouncers at biker bars when their playing days are over . . . if the steroids and whatnot don't get them first.

 

[AmericaNeedsMe]

LeBron looked like he was 30 years old when he was in high school. Go back and look at the magazine covers. At around 6-7 and 250 he wasn't exactly a shrinking violet.

CC looks like a normal human. She looks like almost all basketball players--male or female--looked until weight training hit the sport hard around 20 years ago. Check out YouTube and watch college and NBA videos from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s. Pete Marvich was downright skinny, but he sure as hell could do anything with a basketball. Look at the great Iowa teams and you'll see tall guys, but you won't see bulging muscles on anybody. Long and lean . . . that was what basketball players--and most baseball players--looked like for the vast majority of each sport's history. Hell, even football players generally played at their own natural strength and weight until the 1980s or so. In the 1970s, e.g., Iowa football had ONE universal weight machine in the lobby of the locker room. That was the extent of the weight training program.

Anyway, CC is a throwback physically compared to the many thugs she faces in the WNBA, many of whom will be great as bouncers at biker bars when their playing days are over . . . if the steroids and whatnot don't get them first.

"Thugs" huh?

Take it easy, boomer.

 

[EvilMonkeyInTheCloset]

I have the very strong opinion that the WNBA should be much cleaner than the men's game... instead it is much more physical.
It's very strange what is happening

The college game, while still having its spurts of physicality, is much more free-flowing and focused on offensive organization.

The WNBA tries too hard to not only emulate the men's pro game, but outdo it as well, and that's a massive mistake. All it's done is lead to sloppy basketball, overly physical play, and officiating that more or less washes their hands of it and is only there to prevent things from turning into hair-pulling Malace at the Palace level brawls on a nightly basis......

Say what you want about the ineptitude of college officials, but there have been countless times in the games I've watched since the WNBA season started where I've been like, "that'd be a foul in college.....that'd be a foul.....that'd definitely get called."

The college game, right or wrong, is more tightly officiated than the WNBA. Whether you agree with specific calls is the whole subjective aspect of it.

There's 3 things that the WNBA, its officials, and its franchises need to figure out for starters if they really want to improve the product on the floor:

1. Tighter officiating. You can always lighten up to an extent, but consistently taking a minimalist approach does nothing to help the game, nor prevent the next issue.....

2. Dial back the physicality. Certain types of people will argue "that's just basketball", and to that I would factually point out that, no, actually the players playing the game (idiotically, I should add) just allowed it to get that way and nobody did a good enough job of KEEPING it from sticking..............

The rules of basketball don't involve all the grabbing, pushing, shoving and all other forms of impeding freedom of movement. Those are just excuses that players need to justify so that they can feel like they can be on a more even playing field competitively.

3. Better organized basketball, particularly on offense. How often are fans complaining that Indiana basically does nothing on offense? That's not, and their team is not an isolated incident. There has been bad, disorganized, sloppy offensive basketball going back to the inception of this league.

It's not gonna surprise anyone that the teams that win championships are typically the most organized, and just so happen to have some of the best players as well.

But if we're talking about improving the overall product, the organization and structure of all these teams needs to get better. Too many settle for basic offensive sets, and low percentage shots, and some of that can be attributed to the physical play making it difficult to create, especially when certain teams are lacking in skill compared to others, and some of that by extention also can be attributed to the quicker shot clock of the WNBA. They get 24 seconds to try to run a set play in the half court, and execute it well, all the while players are being hounded like hunted animals. It's understandable, then, that shot selections aren't always the greatest.

And while there still shouldn't be any excuses for not at least trying to improve offensive organization/execution/structure whatever you want to call it, if the first two things I talked about get taken care of, then there absolutely should be no excuse for #3 not to see improvement from team to team as well.

 

[HawkMachine]

Lebron is a flopping bitch.

 

[GOHOX69]

It's a fair question to ask whether Caitlin's body can handle the physicality of the WNBA over multiple years. 4 years is a long ass time when you are getting your ass beaten in game after game no matter how good you are at it.

 

[GOHOX69]

Lebron is a flopping bitch.

You really should stick to accounting. Hilarious take.

 

[HawkMachine]

You really should stick to accounting. Hilarious take.

Just a Jordan fan.

And I stand by my statement, Lebron IS a flopping bitch.

 

[GOHOX69]

Just a Jordan fan.

And I stand by my statement, Lebron IS a flopping bitch.

I love MJ but he too humiliated himself with the Wizards.

 

[RocknRollface]

The league was still very physical when LeBron entered. He was going against the Garnet Pierce Celtics and the Pistons with Ben Wallace ect.

Also LeBron was was extremely imposing both physically and athletically at 18. No one could match him athletically at that time.

There's no comparing him vs his peers when he started to Clark vs hers now.

LeBron is actually probably the worst example you could use. Just about every other rookie ever, beside Shaq or Wilt Chamberlin, would be a less bad example.

Steph Curry is the correct example, small and unathletic compared to his peers then and now. Just like CC will always be.

 

[SI_NYC]

LeBron looked like he was 30 years old when he was in high school. Go back and look at the magazine covers. At around 6-7 and 250 he wasn't exactly a shrinking violet.

CC looks like a normal human. She looks like almost all basketball players--male or female--looked until weight training hit the sport hard around 20 years ago. Check out YouTube and watch college and NBA videos from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s. Pete Marvich was downright skinny, but he sure as hell could do anything with a basketball. Look at the great Iowa teams and you'll see tall guys, but you won't see bulging muscles on anybody. Long and lean . . . that was what basketball players--and most baseball players--looked like for the vast majority of each sport's history. Hell, even football players generally played at their own natural strength and weight until the 1980s or so. In the 1970s, e.g., Iowa football had ONE universal weight machine in the lobby of the locker room. That was the extent of the weight training program.

Anyway, CC is a throwback physically compared to the many thugs she faces in the WNBA, many of whom will be great as bouncers at biker bars when their playing days are over . . . if the steroids and whatnot don't get them first.

A good part of the NBA is still relatively skinny still. Look at Boston for example. Most are pretty thin.

 

[cmhawks99]

The college game, while still having its spurts of physicality, is much more free-flowing and focused on offensive organization.

The WNBA tries too hard to not only emulate the men's pro game, but outdo it as well, and that's a massive mistake. All it's done is lead to sloppy basketball, overly physical play, and officiating that more or less washes their hands of it and is only there to prevent things from turning into hair-pulling Malace at the Palace level brawls on a nightly basis......

Say what you want about the ineptitude of college officials, but there have been countless times in the games I've watched since the WNBA season started where I've been like, "that'd be a foul in college.....that'd be a foul.....that'd definitely get called."

The college game, right or wrong, is more tightly officiated than the WNBA. Whether you agree with specific calls is the whole subjective aspect of it.

There's 3 things that the WNBA, its officials, and its franchises need to figure out for starters if they really want to improve the product on the floor:

1. Tighter officiating. You can always lighten up to an extent, but consistently taking a minimalist approach does nothing to help the game, nor prevent the next issue.....

2. Dial back the physicality. Certain types of people will argue "that's just basketball", and to that I would factually point out that, no, actually the players playing the game (idiotically, I should add) just allowed it to get that way and nobody did a good enough job of KEEPING it from sticking..............

The rules of basketball don't involve all the grabbing, pushing, shoving and all other forms of impeding freedom of movement. Those are just excuses that players need to justify so that they can feel like they can be on a more even playing field competitively.

3. Better organized basketball, particularly on offense. How often are fans complaining that Indiana basically does nothing on offense? That's not, and their team is not an isolated incident. There has been bad, disorganized, sloppy offensive basketball going back to the inception of this league.

It's not gonna surprise anyone that the teams that win championships are typically the most organized, and just so happen to have some of the best players as well.

But if we're talking about improving the overall product, the organization and structure of all these teams needs to get better. Too many settle for basic offensive sets, and low percentage shots, and some of that can be attributed to the physical play making it difficult to create, especially when certain teams are lacking in skill compared to others, and some of that by extention also can be attributed to the quicker shot clock of the WNBA. They get 24 seconds to try to run a set play in the half court, and execute it well, all the while players are being hounded like hunted animals. It's understandable, then, that shot selections aren't always the greatest.

And while there still shouldn't be any excuses for not at least trying to improve offensive organization/execution/structure whatever you want to call it, if the first two things I talked about get taken care of, then there absolutely should be no excuse for #3 not to see improvement from team to team as well.

Excellent post…if I’m not mistaken and maybe somebody can pull up the rule book, but a foul is (or so I thought) anything that physically restricts the movement of a basketball player to do their job.

I would propose there should be some leeway within an 8 foot circle of the hoop. Past that however, any hands on a person to restrict or change their direction should be a foul 🤷‍♂️

I don’t watch a ton of NBA basketball but they don’t grab and hold and push 20 and 30 foot from the hoop like they do in the WNBA.

They are guarding her by grabbing, holding and pushing her constantly on the perimeter. Every time she runs around the screen or out of a scrum, they have a hand pulling on her jersey.

Not to mention the fact that they are trying very hard to embarrass her. There really is some shitty things going on.