Candace Parker = Shaq?

According to the Daily Herald, Candace Parker of the Los Angeles Sparks has a Q-Score of 26. The Q-Score is generally used to advertisers to determine how popular a celebrity is. In short, when asked about Candace Parker, 26 percent of people agree with the statement "Candace Parker is one of my favorite people."

There are only three other female athletes with higher scores. Volleyball stars Kerri Walsh and Misty May each have a 29, and figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi has a 27. Parker's 26 ties her with NBA players Larry Bird, Shaquille O'Neal and David Robinson.

Celebrities get paid for advertising partly on the strength of their Q-Scores. Which explains why Candace Parker makes a lot more in endorsement money than she ever makes playing for the WNBA.

A sample Q-Score ranking for an unknown target demo can be found here.

New Rethinking Basketball Post

Q at Rethinking Basketball has written one of the best articles I've read from him about gender and marketing in the WNBA.

The title is "What Difference a Year Makes: Why Ahistorical Analyses of Sport Perpetuate Misrepresentations of the WNBA". He writes about the recent placement of Candace Parker on the cover of ESPN: The Magazine, about all of the brouhaha about the first paragraph of the article about her discussing her cup size (of all things), and delves into an analysis of basketball and gender narratives.

My comments:

1. From a paragraph:

"However, the big difference this time around is that given all the media attention given to Parker and the Olympics last year, speaking from a place self-imposed ignorance about the WNBA no longer carries much credibility. Parker's arrival on the national (and international) sports scene last summer was one of those special moments in sports history that even the below-average lunkhead male would have had a hard time just ignoring. This does not mean we suddenly have a whole lot of enlightened, gender-conscious WNBA commentary...it's just a new sort of ignorance I guess..."

I concur. I don't think a person can pass themselves off as a sportswriter anymore without at least a basic knowledge of the WNBA. Part of the task of being a sportswriter these days is that you have to know a little bit about everything...or at least, you have to be able to fake it. In the old days, sportswriters were assigned one beat (baseball, or whatever) and rarely wrote about other manners. With the rise of television, with the power of syndicated columns and with cutbacks in press coverage, sportwriters are expected to be a bit more ranging in their knowledge. Even if they're called upon to comment upon golf or tennis, they had better know at least the names of the major names in those sports.

Q believes the days of calling yourself a sportswriter and bleating "I don't know anything about the WNBA" are pretty much over. The W might not make the news that much, but it makes it enough. You'd better know something about the league other than the same old tired arguments before you pontificate about its success or failure, not just "I watched one game and I didn't like it."

2. The back half of the blog post elaborates on two different subjects that aren't so much contradictory as that they have a tenuous connection: first, the idea of women as athletes. Second, the idea that other sports have greater gravitas and therefore deserve more attention.

With regard to the first, Q writes that the problem is not so much that men's basketball is inherently exciting because men can do more with a basketball, but the problem is that for many people - even some females - the concept of "female" somehow does not include "athlete". When some people try to put the two together, you can almost hear the computer in their head smoke and belch, with an electronic voice shouting "Does not compute! Does not compute!"

For those unenlightened (and I choose the word deliberately) persons, female athletic achievement can only be understood in comparison to male athletic achievement. Even when outsiders write about the sports and how to improve the WNBA, they either a) make suggestions so that it becomes a version of the male game played by smaller people - lower the rims, etc., or b) fall back on the baseline definition of female as "someone attractive to men" - wear unitards, etc.

(On most threads filled with comments by the red-bellied-woodpeckers (RBWs) among us, one of the suggestions - term defined loosely - for the WNBA is that everyone should be dressing like the women's volleyball players, bikinis and all. At first, I thought this was just gender-bashing, but with the announcement of an actual season of the Lingerie Football League, I'm not so sure...I'm coming to believe that these RBWs thought they were actually giving rational advice!)

The second part - the part about the legitimacy of a league in the public eye - I've written about before. Particularly, in the first two decades of baseball, basketball and football the new-born leagues were racked with franchise relocations, collapses, and other embarassing failures.

I believe that the acceptance of the WNBA is closely linked to Kubler-Rosses Five Stages of terminal illness - in this case, not so much as an illness as a paradigm shift and the death of an idea that Women Are Supposed To Be In This Box and Never Come Out of It. It's about being forced to expand one's perception not just about athletes and athletics, but about gender roles:

1. Denial: "The WNBA? What's that? Who cares?"
2. Anger: "God, that league sucks! It's nothing but a bunch of lesbians! David Stern should do something about that league! I swear, if ESPN reports one more time about the WNBA, I'll go to CBS Sports!"
3. Bargaining: "You know the WNBA is inferior. Therefore, you should go along with me and no one should follow it." "You can't win. The interests against the WNBA are too entrenched. Give up."

And when that doesn't work, "I'd like the WNBA, but why do they have to shove it down my throat? Why does ESPN have to report on its front page? Why does ESPN have to show this on TV when they could show (soccer, more baseball, D-league)? If the WNBA just wouldn't do (X) I could put up with it."

I expect in the next 20 years, we'll hit the Depression stage.

"What ever happened to women at least trying to be attractive? Who could it hurt?"
"Women have completely destroyed sports. It used to be that a man had a refuge."
"Remember the days when you didn't have to put the word 'men's' in front of a sport?"

However, don't lose hope. I suspect a few have moved on to Acceptance. "Acceptance" doesn't mean watching the WNBA, it just means not getting your underwear all wound up about it. In the same way that I "accept" NASCAR. (Sorry, it's just not my thing.)

But I digress. Good blog post. Go read it.

What If...No Candace Parker in 2008?

One more time!

A friend of mine on a blog - I can't say which - decried the existence of "what if" scenarios. Therefore, I'll try to answer a big what if that gets Tennessee fans a buzzing:

What if Candace Parker decided to remain in Tennessee for her fourth year of eligibilty and skipped the 2008 WNBA Draft?

Let's make this easy and say that Candace Parker changed her mind after she got drafted by the Sparks - that way we don't have to change the rest of the draft.

1. Candace probably would have helped Tennessee a lot. Maybe somewhere between four to six wins worth of help. This of course depends on the value of the player she'd be displacing. A 20-9 team becomes a 24-5 team or a 26-3 team, and Tennessee goes back into the AP Top Ten.

2. Without Candace, Los Angeles sinks by approximately four wins, using the value of win shares determined by basketball-reference.com. But who gets the four wins that the Sparks lose? I gave them to:

a) Detroit, a team that LA only beat by 3 points in one matchup
b) Chicago, a team that LA only beat by 4 points
c) Connecticut, a team that lost to LA in overtime by 5 points, and
d) San Antonio, where LA beat the Silver Stars by 5 despite shooting only 34 percent.

Here are the new 2008 WNBA Final Standings in a universe without Candace Parker:

East

Detroit 23-11
Connecticut 23-11
New York 19-15
Indiana 17-17
Chicago 13-21
Washington 10-24
Atlanta 4-30

West

San Antonio 25-9
Seattle 22-12
Sacramento Monarchs 18-16
Houston Comets 17-17
Los Angeles 16-18 (4-3, 2-2 vs. Phoenix, better conference record)
Phoenix Mercury 16-18 (4-3, 2-2 vs. Los Angeles, worse conference record)
Minnesota Lynx 16-18 (2-4)

3. Nothing changes in the East. Detroit goes on to win the East, and most likely, win the title.

4. In the West, Sacramento moves up into the #3 spot and the Houston Comets move up to the #4 spot. This sets up Seattle-Sacramento (which Seattle would probably win) and San Antonio-Houston. San Antonio and Houston hate each other as teams. If somehow, Houston ends up defeating the Silver Stars in the first round, it makes it that much tougher to contract Houston. Despite the financial burden, in that outcome Houston might survive yet another year.

5. Whoever replaces Candace Parker on the Los Angeles roster doesn't rise to Plenette Pierson's bait. "The Brawl" never takes place.

6. Likewise, Candace Parker's dunks are removed. Lisa Leslie remains the only woman to dunk in a WNBA game.

7. Finishing 16-18 for the year is a bit depressing. Lisa Leslie wonders if she should take an earlier retirement.

8. In the NCAA tournament, Tennessee makes it to the Regional Finals before falling. Candace Parker is projected as the #1 pick in the 2009 WNBA Draft. Atlanta, picking first, picks Angel McCoughtry for some inexplicable reason.

As a result, the Washington Mystics choose Candace Parker with their #2 pick. In her first few games for Washington, she dunks. Barack Obama takes his daughters to see Candace Parker play for the Mystics, and a new era begins.

9. Lisa Leslie is talked out of retirement. She thinks she'll get along fine with the Sparks first-round draft pick, a girl named Courtney Paris....

FIBA Europe Partially Confirms Candace Parker Pregnancy Rumor

From FIBA Europe:

"Candace will not come to Ekaterinbourg as she waits for her first baby," Vetra said.

Thanks to "HotForHammon" at the RebKell Message Board.

Here's a big question: why do we have to go to a European basketball website to find out news that should have come from either a) the WNBA, b) the Los Angeles Sparks, or c) Candace herself?

UPDATE: Well, that was fast. Congratulations to Shelden Williams and Candace Parker. We expect to see your child suiting up for the 2031 season of either the N or the W!

Without Candace

There is a rumor - which has not been verified - that Candace Parker is pregnant.

Granted, when you look for computer translations for proof - "Kendis Parker widely publicized Uralic public, did not arrive in Yekaterinburg. This became known at the end of the year, when the player announced that it intends to acquire a child" - you're never 100 percent sure. Maybe Candace intends to buy a child.

If Candace is a no-show for 2009, not only does this mean substantially less dunking in the WNBA, it also means that the Sparks have some big problems. It was Candace and Leslie that kept this team above water; without Candace Lisa Leslie will have to perform a solo act. (Now, Leslie will know what it feels like when one of your key players leaves a team due to pregnancy - Leslie skipped all of 2007 for that very reason.)

So without Candace, who is in the front running for an MVP in 2009?

1. Diana Taurasi: She's got to be the front runner. She'll be a young 26 years old at the end of the season. She and Cappie Pondexter carried the Mercury on their backs last year. She has a great personality and even appeals to those people who don't like the WNBA in a way that no other WNBA player does.

Add to that the fact that she's never won one. The MVP might end up staying in the west yet again.

2. Lindsey Whalen: She'll also hit 26 years old and she should be even better than she was last year. Then again, she's not the world's greatest quote (Taurasi) and she doesn't have the body of a superstar model (Parker, Leslie, Jackson). With the MVP picked for intangibles as much as it's picked for on-court performance, Whalen would have to have a superlative year to make it. But she's probably the hope for an Eastern MVP.

3. Sophia Young: A great player from a marquee team. However, Young has one big problem. She's not Becky Hammon. Becky will always draw the attention, make the quotes, and have the monster fanbase. Which will lead on toe ask, "How can a player be the MVP when her teammate is getting all the glory?"

4, Deanna Nolan: If there's a player with personality, it's definitely Tweety. She can put on the kind of flashy show that fans like to see, Detroit is a team with definite dynasty aspirations, and she's definitely got personality. But is it the personality that the image-conscious WNBA wants? There might be resistance in giving the MVP to a "Bad Girl", one with all those tattoos. If you're looking for the sweet Becky-Hammon-girl-next-door type, look elsewhere - the problem is maybe the voters will, too.

5. Jia Perkins/Sylvia Fowles: When Big Syl got hurt in 2008, Jia picked up the slack. When they are both healthy, the Sky become a lot more formidable. But if the Sky finish fifth - or worse - would it doom any hope of an MVP for either of the two?

Bouncing Baby Dunker

Congratulations to Candace Parker for throwing down above the rim in last night's Los Angeles Sparks victory over the Indiana Fever.

This is the second dunk in WNBA history, or third if you count the All-Star Game. It is also the first dunk by someone other than Lisa Leslie.

Dunks:

1. Lisa Leslie. July 30, 2002 versus the Miami Sol at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
2. Lisa Leslie. July 9, 2005 versus the Eastern Conference All-Stars at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut.
3. Candace Parker. June 22, 2008 versus the Indiana Fever at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.