Twenty-Five Blocked Shots

From the Brittney Griner Blog:

The newly minted Baylor signee had 21 points, 13 rebounds and 25 blocked shots as Nimitz of Houston beat Alief Hastings 69-18 last Tuesday. The 6-foot-8 Griner's 25 snuffs eclipsed the national mark of 23 by Myeisha Jones of Oakland (Calif.) Claremont against Oakland Tech in 1997. Jones went on to play at Merritt College and UNLV.

25 Blocks. How is that even possible? My suggestion is that if you want to practice for a game against Brittney Griner, just put up a plywood wall that partially obscures the basket.

More People Surprised that Brittney Griner Can Dunk

Griner vs. Parker. Coming to a court near you in 2013.

Last month, I wrote a blog post about Brittney Griner being a possible "killer app" for the WNBA - a person so interesting that even those normally not interested in the WNBA at all would tune in just to see Griner dunk on someone.

A Yahoo Sports Blogger has just posted on Brittney's dunking acumen. Of course, he starts out by being dismissive of the earlier dunks by Lisa Leslie and Candace Parker. This is no surprise to anyone that really follows women's basketball and how those that...well...don't like women that much (there's no polite way to say it) would simply "move the benchmarks" whenever women accomplished something.

Anyone who has followed the-history-of-women-succeeding-in-anything knows all about "moving the benchmarks". The first argument is that women can't accomplish "A", and if a woman ever does accomplish "A", the haters either redefine what "A" means or say that it isn't enough to accomplish "A", one must accomplish "B" and "C", too. The first knock on the WNBA was "women can't dunk" and then after Leslie and Parker put that to the lie, the knock was "women can't dunk with authority". (Definition of "with authority" an elastic concept.)

And now, Griner comes along and she dunks...well..."with authority" by pretty much anyone's definition. So when you go into the comments - if you have the intention of losing a few brain cells - the fumbling retards at Yahoo are simply left to conclude that she must be some sort of man in disguise. (Which means that the tank on the haterade just went empty - when you're opponents only have ad hominem left in their quiver of arguments, it's a sign that the fight has gone out of them and they're just left two minutes away from grunts and poo-slinging.)

Oh yeah. Griner can dunk. Definitely. Absolutely. I don't think much of dunking per se - it's just a very flamboyant way to score a pedestrian two points - but I enjoy the discomfort it seems to be bringing to some people. Yep, women's basketball is a real sport - they have uniforms and everything, ya know.

Is Brittney Griner the "Killer App" for the WNBA?

There's no one to compare her to.

In Steve Tally's Almost America, he refers to Babe Ruth as the "killer app" for radio. A killer app is a piece of software that is so attractive that people will buy the hardware just to be able to use the software. According to Tally, people would purchase radios who had never purchased them before just to hear about (since they couldn't see) Babe Ruth and his homerun-hitting exploits.

Babe Ruth absolutely dominated baseball, to the point where you can divide baseball into a "pre-1920" (dead ball) and "post-1920" (live ball) era. Ruth actually swung different - baseball in his time was predicated upon moving a runner from base to base to base. Swinging for the fence was considered to be inefficient, but Ruth showed that way of thinking was the way of the dodo.

I've recently read a Houston Chronicle story about future college prospect Brittney Griner. I'll give you some facts about Griner. She's 6'8" tall, and still growing, and she dunks - regularly - in high school games. As a result, a paper that has paid scant attention to the Comets in their hayday is suddenly languishing its love on someone who hasn't played college ball.

She's scoring 27.1 points per game and 13 times, her point total alone has either equaled or exceeded the entire point total of the opposing team. Some say that she could eclipse even Candace Parker.

I'm wondering if Brittney Griner is going to be the "killer app" of the WNBA. Even people who hate the WNBA are forced to pay attention. There are the inevitable comments about her husky voice -- at 6'8", what do you expect? Her vocal cords are going to be different. One poster to the Chronicle complained that "How hard can it be to dunk a ball if you're 6'8"?" - which is a complaint that could be made about most NBA players.

This might lead to people attending WNBA games just to see Brittney Griner. The naysayers might think "I hate women's basketball, but I have to see that Griner woman up close." Certainly, if she remains healthy and puts up numbers in college like the ones she put up in high school, you can see her as being a potential #1 pick. Not to mention endorsements.

Of course, this is idle speculation. But if Chamique Holdsclaw could bring in an extra 500 in attendance or so per game, and if Candace Parker's pregnancy makes front page news in sports, imagine what Brittney Griner is going to do to the profile of the WNBA.

Candace, Meet Brittney

Brittney Griner, that is.

She's 16 years old, out of Nimitz High School in Houston, Texas.
She once had a quintuple-double.
She's 6'8". And according to doctors, she's getting taller, and that the height is healthy height. No inherent fragility detected.
ESPN says she has the potential of being the best women's basketball player of all time.
Sorry colleges. She's spoken for. She's orally committed to Baylor, and will probably sign a letter of intent with them in 2008 for her to start as a freshman for the 2009-10 season.
And she's already dunking in high school.

From Chris Hansen at ESPN:

Some of the most prolific shot-blockers on the men's side of the game -- Marcus Camby, Dikembe Mutombo, Hakeem Olajuwon, Bill Russell and Ben Wallace -- have had lasting effects on the game. But none of them have been as dominating in their game as Griner is in the female game. The fact is, she would be a shot-blocking factor against male opponents -- maybe not as dominant, given the size of the players, but still a factor.

Coach Marynell Meadors is rumored to be moving to Houston during the off-season. "Just for my health."
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Sparks are already making plans to get Candace pregnant in 2012. You can never work out your first-round draft choices too far ahead of time.