The thrill round girls’s basketball lately is plain. The 2023 NCAA girls’s basketball nationwide championship sport between LSU and Iowa was top-of-the-line sporting occasions of the yr, and drew huge scores for ESPN. The 2023 WNBA Finals between two superteams within the New York Liberty and Las Vegas Aces additionally generated among the highest TV scores in league historical past. Earlier this week, I bought to witness the Caitlin Clark phenomenon in particular person, which was one thing adjoining to Beatles-mania for the younger women in attendance.
Curiosity in girls’s hoops is barely going to proceed trending up with a lot nice younger expertise within the sport, however the WNBA nonetheless has actual issues. Groups are sometimes touring with out constitution flights, participant salaries are nonetheless extraordinarily low, and the advertising of the league might use an entire overhaul. Girls hoopers want extra advocates from each the media and males’s gamers, however sadly some males are nonetheless caught at midnight.
Denver Nuggets ahead Michael Porter Jr. appeared on The Pivot podcast with Ryan Clark this week, and gave some extraordinarily cringeworthy and inaccurate opinions on the WNBA. Porter Jr. in contrast girls’s basketball gamers to ping-pong gamers asking for extra money, mentioned he’d watch extra girls’s basketball if the gamers dunked extra typically, and completely missed the purpose of pay equality within the league.
You may watch the complete interview right here. Right here’s a clip that’s gone viral for the way silly Porter Jr.’s feedback are.
Porter Jr. is understood for his dangerous opinions as a lot as his candy leap shot, and this one isn’t going to win him any new followers. Why even give him a platform to spew this rubbish?
WNBA gamers usually are not asking to make the identical salaries as their NBA counterparts as Porter appears to be suggesting. As a substitute, WNBA gamers are asking for a similar share of shared income that their NBA counterparts get. WNBA gamers have gone a very long time with out getting a reduce of merchandise gross sales, for instance, whereas NBA gamers do. Aces celebrity guard Kelsey Plum defined a part of what WNBA gamers are asking for in a 2022 interview:
Right here’s a full explainer on how income sharing within the WNBA works after the most recent CBA. There have been some enhancements, nevertheless it nonetheless isn’t sufficient.
Porter is getting slammed on social media for referring to girls as “females.” His level about wanting girls to dunk earlier than he begins watching is perhaps his most insulting of all. Stephen Curry hasn’t dunked this season and he’s nonetheless fairly thrilling. Girls’s basketball is nice, and it completely doesn’t want above-the-rim play to seize the eye it deserves.
Porter Jr. ought to know higher, contemplating his sisters performed the sport at a excessive stage. Right here’s a small pattern of the response on social media from MPJ’s feedback.
mpj has mentioned so so so many dumb issues about so so so many subjects that i discover it onerous to even get riled up about his wnba bullshit. the boy has rocks for a mind.
— Lindsay Gibbs (@linzsports) February 3, 2024
That MPJ interview actually has me steaming. From his ignorance to him repeatedly referring to girls as “females”.
— Janae Sims (@auntienae95) February 3, 2024
I really like how MPJ’s dumb feedback popping out the identical evening a freshman named Juju Watkins has dropped 40 factors by three quarters towards the 4th ranked Cardinal!
— Chris Williamson (@CWilliamson44) February 3, 2024
MPJ doesn’t perceive how insensitive and disrespectful his feedback had been however as soon as once more these males on @thepivot podcast and different’s who faux care make it worse for girls! Don’t deliver it up in the event you’re not going to do your analysis so principally SHUT UP!
— April Sykes (@AP_Slush24) February 3, 2024
I assume @realclark25 requested #MPJ his ideas on the ladies’s sport bc he wore Stewies shoe, however the lack of information in terms of the inequities/inequality in girls’s professional sports activities is a matter in that convo @thepivot. Wanting ahead to the comply with up bc that WASN’T IT.
— Annie Costabile (@AnnieCostabile) February 3, 2024
As many identified, Porter’s feedback went viral on the identical day USC freshman sensation JuJu Watkins dropped 51 factors in a win over top-five Stanford. Girls’s basketball goes to proceed to soar. Porter Jr. ought to examine his incorrect assumptions and tune in.
