Dream Put on Hard Hats and Dig Selves Out of Hole

This is from a web page from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about how hot it is during the summer.

Clearly, Taj McWilliams and Armintie Price are willing to establish position on the court no matter what it takes.

You Know You're a Women's Basketball Fan When....

1. When you are tempted to spell the word "summit" with an extra "t".
2. When you know how to both spell and pronounce Geno Auriemma.
3. When the folding of a women's basketball club two continents away is a great cause of concern.
4. When you groan whenever someone says the WNBA was the first women's professional basketball league.
5. When you no longer put "women's" as an adjective in front of "basketball", perplexing your friends when you talk about Appel and Charles and Lavender and Jackson and Taurasi and what great players they are.
6. When the first think you think of New York is "Pffft! What championships has New York ever won in anything?"
7. Whenever someone talks about how groundbreaking it would be for baseball or football to have an openly gay player, you can't help but chuckle.
8. When you further purplex your friends by complaining about how short the basketball season is.
9. When you read every part of the paper except for the sports page, and
10. When you know "The Shot" took place in 1999, and not in 1989.

Or the Beach

OhDangItsCrystal has a funny skit Lauren Jackson. Don't take it personally, Jackson lovers. :D

Some Bugs in Google Translate

Eleven Defenses of the WNBA

Comedy website 11 Points writes an article called 11 Reasons Why You Should Stop Crapping on the WNBA. It's a very interesting read. The reasons, for those who don't click the link.

11. No, you couldn't beat any of them in one-on-one.
10. The players aren't universally unattractive -- not even close.
9. The scoring isn't as low as you think.
8. It doesn't compare to the NBA because it shouldn't.
7. The "We Got Next" campaign sneaked into your subconscious.
6. Because there's such a thing as a "Did Not Play - Pregnant" in the box score...and that's awesome.
5. It's not hemorrhaging money like you think -- not even clsoe.
4. One woman won the league MVP then promptly got naked.
3. The playoffs aren't endless.
2. It's not going anywhere.
1. On some level, your dislike is rooted in latent sexism.

I agree with 11. Definitely agree with 10 - have you seen Katie Smith and Plenette Pierson after they've "cleaned up"?" If anyone disagreed with 9, they'd have no argument after this year.

Point number 8 was a very smart point - we don't compare welterweight boxing to middleweight; we appreciate each on their own terms. Point 7 is a sort of value judgment, and I don't think I've ever seen 6 in a box score.

There could be some contention about 5, but you'd have to define "hemorrhaging money" as what the lowest first-round rookie NBA draft choice makes in salary could play for about seven teams worth of players.

For 4, no comment.

For 3, hallelujah!

For 2, as long as David Stern is around, I can agree.

The big kicker is #1. Of course, there are some haters who are just flat out misogynists. Other haters "worship at the temple of male religion" i. e. organized sports and the existence of the WNBA is seen as a transgression. I agree with the implied point that mocking the WNBA is considered by many of the powers that be to be an acceptable way to put down an "underclass" - you can't tell jokes about (X) people any more but WNBA jokes are acceptable these days.

Some of the haters claim, "Hey, those aren't the reasons I dislike the WNBA!" They become rational...briefly...and then the invective comes right back. The killing point:

The level of disgust is completely disproportional to the effect the WNBA has on your life. Maybe 90 seconds out of a 90-minute SportsCenter, a barely-visible link on the top ESPN.com, a blurb six pages deep into the sports section of the newspaper, and bumping rodeos or the 2003 World Series of Poker from ESPN2 for a night... that's not close to enough to inspire the verbal bile the WNBA is constantly splattered with.

Or as Vanessa Hayden might put it, "it's the dog that got bit that barks the loudest".

They Call it "The News Cycle" But It Only Has One Wheel

Last night: Phoenix beats Indiana in Game 1 of the WNBA finals 120-116, setting a record for most points scored by a team and most points scored by both teams in 13 years of WNBA history.

Today: Initial positive reaction from media.

Tomorrow: Bill Simmons writes an article about why the WNBA is doomed because it's obvious that women don't have the skills to play defense.

The Ultimate Fate of the Lingerie Football League

The Lingerie Football League faces a set of different problems that are sure to doom it. Unlike those who chime against the WNBA - namely, those who claim that the WNBA can't succeed because it's played by women and women have cooties - I don't claim that ads for the LFL are being "shoved down my throat" or that there is a international conspiracy to promote the league. I believe that in a universe full of 1000 channels, there is room for every sport.

Here's the problem with the Lingerie Football League - it will be forced to make the choice between being one thing or the other.

If translated properly, the league could rightfully be named the "Women's Underwear Football League". It's sort of a league for people who want to see beautiful women run around in their underwear. Maybe there's always been a fetish out there where these women toss a football around; I don't claim to know.

Most people pretty much laugh such a venture off, claiming that the league will be populated with out-of-work strippers and failed models. But in quite a few press pieces I've read, the players, or the owners, or somebody claim that "this is real football".

There is a danger in allowing these fetishized objects of desire to play real football. The problem is that if you begin playing football, you start wanting your team to win games. An owner of one of these teams might begin thinking that his team of damsels can actually win games. And when winning games becomes important - after all, there is the glamour of the sport's highest prize, the Lingerie Bowl, to think about - people become...well...competitive.

Once you put the thing on a competitive footing, you begin looking for creative interpretations of the rules. True, beauty seems to be The Unspoken Requirement for making a team, one which is never explicitly named but which everyone knows exists. However...the question then becomes beautiful to whom? You know, there are a lot of men out there who like big women. Suppose someone out there with the body of a Wendie Jo Sperber or a Marissa Jaret Winokur wants to play? Now granted, such big women can be blacklisted...but what if there's an influential owner in a big city who threatens to take his team and go home if she can't play? Once you start looking for a winning edge, your standards of beauty begin to expand.

(It would be funny if some losing owner decided to fire his entire team and replace it with a decidedly unbeautiful collection of mean women. Would the league sanction the owner for violation of a non-existent rule?)

Furthermore, if beauty is the key to making the team, is there a rule that you have to remain beautiful? If you want your Hooters girls to pick up some speed...well, there is the Marion Jones way of doing it. It comes in a bottle, and you inject it. Sure, back acne is involved, but who cares if you're two games out of first?

What if your star running back breaks her nose? Nose job time? Yeah, but what if a berth in the Lingerie Bowl is at stake? She might be the first person to say, "To hell with the break, I'll fix it later." As a result, all of the photos are of a Karl Malden lookalike.

Here's the dilemma - if you treat the competition seriously, then after a while, the beauty takes second place. The league will simply become less pretty over time. Great sports players aren't necessarily blessed with the looks of an Adonis or a Venus. Then the players will start demanding better equipment, and before you know it, the LFL establishment becomes what it probably fears becoming - real competitive football, played by non-glamorous women.

If, on the other hand, you put the beauty over the competition, what you get is a glorified version of World Wide Entertainment. A lot of people might watch it, but no one will ever take it seriously, and your fans get the reputation of yahoos. (Notice that the WWE, for all of its attention on TV and glamour, isn't exactly a hot topic of discussion at Around the Horn.)

Because, face it, beauty and competition do not naturally go hand in hand. They must conflict sooner or later, and the LFL must decide which one will prevail. You will either have beautiful women who become less and less skilled over time, or skilled women who become less or less beautiful. The list of women who are extraordinarly beautiful and can play talented seven-on-seven football in a garter belt is simply too small for the ambitions of the league.

Moral: Never let women play pretend football, because they might soon start asking to play real football.

Hilarity Equals Wikipedia Times Google Squared

Google has created a new application called "Google Square". Here's how it works: you punch in a search term, and instead of Google returning a list of results, it attempts to create a table for you based on the artificial intelligence of a sun-damaged ant.

Here's the results you get when you type in WNBA:

1. Lauren Jackson is "Succeeded By" Sue Bird. Which makes sense, because Jackson is tall and frequently blocks Sue Bird from view, who is required by the league office to always be standing behind Jackson in case she makes a run for it.

2. Rebecca Lobo is "Succeeded By" Billie Winsett-Fletcher. In this case, the "succession" is the NCAA Woman of the Year award.

3. Ticha Penicheiro is succeeded by Stephanie White-McCarty. The "succession" is for the Wade Trophy.

4. Sheryl Swoopes is succeeded by Lisa Leslie. This is for the Naismith Women's College Player of the Year, but I suspect that it might also mean that Lisa Leslie has been following Swoopes for years and picking up Swoopes's loose change.

5. The Detroit Shock and the Connecticut Sun are succeeded by nothing. Either it means that these franchises will be around for 50 years from now, or that they will go late and unlamented.

6. Tina Thompson (or TINA THOMPSON, as Google rightly puts it) is succeeded by Margo Dydek. The succession is as first overall pick in the WNBA regular draft - Thompson went #1 in 1997, Dydek went #1 in 1998. I think it would be hard to find two players more dissimilar.

Inverse Correlation

Hits on "WNBA is a failure" on Google: 107,000
Hits on "NBA Development League is a failure"/"NBA D-League is a failure" on Google: 85,500 (*)

Average attendance for WNBA in 2008: 7,931
Average attendance for NBA Development League in 2008-09: 2,713

(*) - combined results of both searches

How to Fool People Into Thinking You Know Something about the WNBA

Hi! Let's say that you're involved in some sort of tedious internet argument. Suppose you want to try to fool other people into thinking that you're some sort of expert on the WNBA. Perhaps, you're claiming to be a WNBA ex-beat writer ("It was my years of experience as a WNBA beat writer that convinced me that women's basketball sucked.") However, when push comes to shove it proves that your knowledge of the WNBA sucks as much as you think women's basketball sucks. So how can you convince people that you are fully fluent with the league's successes and failures?

Well, you need search no further. We aim to please at Pleasant Dreams and will give you just enough information to pass yourself off as a WNBA expert, either on the internet or when you're arguing with your friends at the bar over who has to buy the next round of nachos.

Important Facts

1. Shorter season. The season is only 34 games long. An NBA season is over twice as long. If you include the playoffs an NBA season might be three times as long. (Rumor has it that the 2005 NBA Championship still isn't over yet.)

2. Shorter game. A WNBA game is only 40 minutes long. Before you decry the WNBA's low scoring, don't get caught in the trap lest someone reminds you that WNBA's games are over earlier. (One rejoinder that might save you in an argument is "Yes! And Thank God!" Your opponent might even forget your faux pas if you can find someone else to high-five.)

You get bonus points if you remember that the games were two 20-minute halves until 2005.

3. Same dimensions. The court is the same size. The players have uniforms and everything. The only differences are in the 3-point arc (which is closer) and the ball (which is one inch in diameter smaller).

4. Important teams to know. Any dumbass can say "Los Angeles" and "New York". Every professional league worth its salt can mention teams in Los Angeles and New York. The absolute minimum number of teams you need to know:

New York Liberty: The team in New York. It plays in Madison Square Garden.
Los Angeles Sparks: The team in Los Angeles. It plays in the Staples Center.
Detroit Shock: Three-time WNBA champions. Current defending champions. They have Bill Laimbeer as their head coach.
Houston Comets: Won the first four WNBA championships. Now defunct. You can always use this in your arguments. Don't let anyone mention the Chicago Stags or the Baltimore Bullets, teams that won championships in the early years of men's pro basketball that went under. (Shouting "Look! a bear!" is a good diversionary tactic.)

5. Important players to know. Let's give you one per current team.

Atlanta Dream: Chamique Holdsclaw. On the other hand, you might not be able to pronounce this. Skip that one.
Chicago Sky: Sylvia Fowles. "Big Syl". 6'6" tall, which is damned tall in the WNBA and under average height (6'7") in the NBA.
Connecticut Sun: Lindsay Whalen. Talk about how a high school player could pass the ball better than her. Ignore the women laughing behind you.
Detroit Shock: You just need to know Bill Laimbeer, the coach. Call him "Trader Bill" from his history of trades that inevitably leave the Shock better and the other team worse.
Indiana Fever: Yolanda Griffith, a recently acquired veteran, is more famous than anyone else on the roster. If you can remember that she played in the ABL, bonus points. (Don't expect anyone to ask what the ABL was.)
Los Angeles Sparks: Many good choices. Go with Candace Parker, and you can talk about the WNBA's weak dunks. Also, she was on the cover of ESPN The Magazine. Your friends read, right?
Minnesota Lynx: Seimone Augustus. Pronounced "See-Moan" and not "Simon-ee". Like Chamique, this one might be one to avoid.
New York Liberty: Janel McCarville, for all the jokes about WNBA players being lesbians. Make sure, however, that Janel is not standing behind you. She can beat you up. I'm serious. No, really, I'm serious. I'd just start running, and I'd thank Jesus that it wasn't Latasha Byears.
Phoenix Mercury: Diana Taurasi. (Just call her "Dee".) You can joke about her being the WNBA player that guy played in that hilarious "WNBA Live 09" YouTube Video. Furthermore, the video actually has Diana Taurasi's seal of approval - no joke. Dee said on Yardbarker that the guy playing her was a good fit, because his tits were at least as big as hers.
Sacramento Monarchs: Just go with Courtney Paris. You know, the girl who said she'd give her scholarship back if Oklahoma didn't win the championship? You can joke about how manly-looking WNBA players are.
San Antonio Silver Stars: Becky Hammon, the woman who joined the Russian Olympic Team when she couldn't make the US Team. Although you shouldn't argue that Hammon is a traitor to the country, or they'll accuse you of secretly liking women's basketball to be so concerned.
Seattle Storm: Sue Bird. Do not mention Lauren Jackson under any circumstances, or the strength of your "all WNBA players are ugly dykes" argument will be undermined.
Washington Mystics: Just mention that the Mystics have a banner in the Verizon Center for "Best WNBA Attendance". Even WNBA fans are laughing at that one.

6. Dunks: Only two WNBA players have dunked. Lisa Leslie is the first one. Candace Parker is the second one. Both play for the Sparks. However, the "weak dunks" argument is in effect only until the beginning of the 2013 season, when Brittney Griner will be drafted number one and make dunking a regular phenomenon. Just point out that she looks like a man. (You should always have a good "Juwanna Mann" joke in effect. Trust me, no one has ever heard them before.)

7. League setup: Two conference, Western and Eastern. Six teams in the Western, seven in the Eastern.

8. Overseas play: Since the WNBA doesn't pay much, players have to supplement their income by playing overseas. (Don't bother memorizing a lot of foreign teams. Just sprinkle "Euroleague" and "Eurocup" in the conversation and no one will check.) I would only pull out this tidbit if your credentials are seriously called into question. Else, the argument might be sprung on you that WNBA players are pretty much exhausted having no break time at all, which might partially excuse any deficiencies in play.

9. Apples and oranges: Do not mention that the average height of a WNBA player is 6'0". (If anyone on the Boston Celtics was under 6' he would have driven a stake through his heart.) Simply compare pituitary behemoths to players half a foot smaller with significantly lesser muscle mass, and pray that no body catches on.

10. WNBA Beat Writers: Another warning is that you want to be really careful when you establish your WNBA knowledge credentials. If you call yourself a WNBA beat writer, for God's sake, don't name a newspaper or a city. Only a handful of teams have local papers that provide anything close to a WNBA beat writer. Hell, they don't even send the same Associated Press guy two nights in a row. People will start asking you if you knew the figure skating beat writer or the curling beat writer at your paper and you'll be drowned in laughter.

Either that, or you just graduated from J-school and they sent you to the game as an intern - in which case, before I serve you another beer, Mac, I'm going to need to see some ID.

NBA On Its Last Legs in Atlanta?

The visual evidence is here.

It's a good thing we still have the Dream.

P. S.: Disclaimer: I hope the Hawks are successful. Philips Arena should be full every night - I'm just joshing around. What I don't get are the kind of people that would like to see the NBA be successful and the WNBA fold. To them, the visual associated with this link is dedicated.

The W-List

There was a funny little post in the "Annals of Improbable Research" that attempted to classify a person's fame by the number of Google hits they got. The point being that we can finally quantify what it means to be "A-list", "B-list" or "C-list".

Keeping tongue firmly in cheek, I decided to see if any WNBA players were A-listers. Or even B-listers. The problem being that the paper is outdated - it considers Monica Lewinsky the ultimate B-list celebrity, and Monica's B-list status is long gone. I therefore modified the formula in question:

fame(dBJU) = 10 log [fame(JU)],

where a JU is a "Jesus Unit" - the number of one's Google Hits divided by one-tenth of the number of hits in Google when searching for "Jesus Christ". The concept is that Jesus Christ should always be an A-list celebrity with a fame(dBJU) = 10.00.

I tested 10 famous women's basketball names to see if any of them made B-list hood:

Candace Parker
Diana Taurasi
Lisa Leslie
Becky Hammon
Sheryl Swoopes
Tina Thompson
Sue Bird
Nancy Lieberman
Pat Summitt
Geno Auriemma

Unfortunately, not a single one of the names above made it into the "B-list". However, nine of the names made it into the "C-list". (Nancy Lieberman, sadly enough, only qualifies for D-list celebrityhood. Maybe we should add "Nancy Lieberman-Cline" into the search. Or "Mannatech".)

The one with the most hits? Candace Parker, with 350,000 Google hits. She tops Lisa Leslie, who registered 301,000 Google hits.

So what kind of stars are C-list celebrities by this metric? If the WNBA were a movie star or a singer, who would she be?

Here are some C-list celebrities by this tongue-in-cheek metric:

Jane Kaczmarek
Heather Thomas
Tracy Bonham

In my opinion, being a "C-list" celebrity gets you on the higher end reality shows, like "Survivor" or "The Amazing Race". (See Pat Summitt connive for the immunity idol! Or watch Bird and Dee navigate roads in Romania!) Being in the D-list gets you the lower end of the reality rainbow. ("Pass the Rock of Love" - watch twelve rabid B-ball fans compete to be Nancy Lieberman's new lover.)

In short, the formula in the paper above seems to be working just fine. In the sense that your average person, upon seeing Lisa Leslie, might say. "I know her! She's a famous WNBA player. What's her name? Parker? No, that's not it. I got it! Sue Bird!"

MLB will fold in two years. Bet on it.

Note the following news story.

I have to ask this rhetorical question about American baseball. "But is this minor talent really worth being so unattractive? That's for the fan to decide!"

Thunderstunk!

Oklahoma City unveiled the new logo and name for their new NBA team.

The name was no surprise. Clay Bennett decided to call it the Thunder. He was unable to use the name Tornadoes because god forbid a tornado hit the midwest and some clueless newsman led the broadcast with "Tornado kills five in Tulsa, and Tornadoes kill the Clippers 106-89." Thunder has never killed anybody, not yet anyway.

As for the logo, to paraphrase the old joke, "That logo wasn't released. It escaped."



Here are the rules.

NBA: plural nouns as mascots
WNBA: abstract nouns as symbols

The way it is, and the way it should be, forever and ever, amen. As a big fan of the Atlanta Dream and all the grief we got because of our name, well who's laughing now?

I can't name a logo in the W that's worse than that one. Even the Washington Mystics logo looks better, because if you squint really hard you might detect a whiff of magical smoke in Washington's logo. (Atlanta, unable to represent "Dream" in concrete terms, simply went with a stylin' red-blue-white logo that any ABA team would have been proud to have.) Whereas OKC's logo represents...nothing.

I suspect that OKC called their team the "Thunder" because they hoped that fans would mistake them for the Seattle Storm.

"An Open Letter to Houston"

Whenever there's a great comedy bit - in this case, one written by Scott Gilmour of Sports Column - I can't help but steal it. I've taken Gilmour's idea, in some cases recopying entire sections of it. Just wanted to know that what comes below isn't exactly my creation. (If you hate it, I suggest you blame Scott!)

(* * *)

Dear Houston,

First off, we would like to officially welcome you to our hell. Our cities are charter members of that small fraternity of places that know what it's like to lose their team. Actually, let us rephrase that: that know what it's like to have our teams either folded underneath us or carpetbagged away. We feel that we should have a talk with you, you know, one of those "just girls" talks.

Face it, we've all been through horrible breakups before. One party wants to make things work, and the other desperately seeks greener pastures. Some of us have had the grief of having the departing party leap into another, more successful relationship. We hope that we can find a hook-up somewhere, but it looks like all of the available men (or women) hook up with more glamorous partners wearing the most expensive clothes and perfume. You think that you'll never shower enough to clean the "dumped" off. Having lived through these disasters, we will share our relationships with you Comets fans.

Suppose you have a partnership with someone. We'll assume it's a guy, but hey, this is the WNBA and we know all about "don't ask, don't tell". Suppose your partner hooks up with someone new.

In Scenario One, the new person is 23 years old, has a hot body, is a part-time lead singer in a rock band and successful puppy doctor who speaks five languages and is a cordon bleu chef. You'll still be upset, but you can understand why your partner left. He or she is probably better off.

In Scenario Two, your partner tells you that they are leaving. Because they've turned gay (or straight). Or is joining a monestary. Or the French Foreign Legion. Or wants to be chemically neutered. Or doesn't even bother telling you they're leaving at all and are just...gone the next day without so much as a "wham-bam-thank-you-Ma'am".

As survivors of the second scenario (don't even get Charlotte started) ,you see, no matter how many time you tell yourself "it's not your fault", you get the overwhelming impression that it was something you did to hasten the decision. Because you didn't love them enough.

What's worse is when everyone is telling you - your parents, your friends, other human beings, Norman Chad - that you made a bad decision and you put your love in the wrong place. That everyone around you knew that your lover was a jerk who could never make a living, that everyone had bet that your love would only last a few years, and that love is just a stupid idea for idealistic losers anyway. (And by the way, your naysayers are married to some jerk who has nothing but contempt for them.)

You've gone through the Five Stages of Break-Up exactly the same we have. First, there's denial. Then, there's anger. Then, there's bargaining. And then, there's depression. WHOA IS THERE DEPRESSION. However bad these four stages may be, for ninety percent of us there will be the final stage: acceptance. When you realize that there was probably nothing you could do who could make him stay. (The other ten percent of us still stick pins in our voodoo dolls.)

Our advice: a lot of mimosas. Seriously. Until you can get to that place called acceptance, there's a hell of a big hump to get over.

There are some things that are out of the question. One of them is stalking. Trust me, when you see him (or her) wearing those new clothes and kissing someone else, your blood will boil. Maybe the league will decide to throw a party in your old city - bring an All-Star Game or some other fundraiser. Do not go there. All of the memories of the good times will just come flooding back. If you make a break, it should be a clean break. At least, a clean break until ten years from now when you get a new WNBA team and your two-timing ex comes to town. In which case, anyone wearing a Comets jersey in your arena will be burned at the stake.

Be prepared for the rumor mongers. If any two-bit WNBA franchise even hints at leaving their arena, Houston will inevitably be mentioned as a possible landing zone. This is the sports equivalent of running into your ex at the bar - it rarely goes anywhere and refreshes old wounds.

I also want to warn you about jumping into another relationship. Atlanta and Chicago might look teh sex-ay, but you don't have the history and you'd be limited to awkward small talk. Take stock of what your ex did to you - he bailed out of the relationship; you woke up one morning and found an empty spot on the bed, his stuff gone and a mailbox full of unpaid bills. Relationships on the rebound are always bad ideas.

It's going to take a long time to learn how to care again. There will be brief Tourettes-like outbursts of inexplicable anger that will confuse many others. But there are other fish in the sea. There's that New Yorker who seems so confident. There's someone in Los Angeles who looks like they have a car and a job. Even that bitch from San Antonio is starting to look really attractive.

After a while, you'll fall in love again. We understand. As for the Comets...well, if it wasn't meant to be it wasn't meant to be and you're probably better off without them. I hear that drinking makes the pain go away faster.

We hope you can get it back together and that your relationship works out. But if it doesn't, give us a call.

Sincerely,

Salt Lake City
Orlando
Miami
Portland
Cleveland
Charlotte

Prospect?

A pleasant blog entry about a little girl playing her first basketball game.

Coach Marynell Meadors is already rushing over there, contract in hand. By September, we think Sam'll be ready to start. How soon can we get her to Atlanta?

Crystal Langhorne and the Violence That is the Mystics

From the official Mystics Blog, called Pass The Ball: the following was written by Crystal Langhorne.

So I am pretty tired of fighting with the old people on my team lol. I always get into arguments with Alana, so one day I bodyslammed her; of course the other elderly woman, Nakia, had to jump in and they beat me up! My other young people, Bernice and Vaughn, were nowhere to be found. So I let that slide because that was about my second week into the season.

However, the other day I got into another argument with Alana. I kept talkin smack because I saw Bernice was in the room with me. So I kept running off at the mouth and they attacked me: Alana, Monique and Nakia, and of course Bernice was nowhere to be found. Again. Nakia had the nerve to beat me with my own bag. And they gave me a wedgie on top of that. But don't worry, I'm going to get them all back when they are by themselves because they can't handle me one on one.


You know after Alana and Taj went off on the Mystics during that halftime when the scored 14 points as a team, this might not be a joke.... One victim is Tree Rollins, who was relieved of his duties after Detroit came to down and drubbed the Mystics by 37 points.

The Baltimore Lottery

Rumor has it that Baltimore is wanting to add a WNBA team, and there has been talk of relocation an existing team, but not adding a new team.

Frankly, I don't put much credence in this. But suppose it happens? So which WNBA team will go to Baltimore?

Baltimore Comets: Baltimore didn't really want the Comets. However, Hilton Koch was offering low, low prices and they just couldn't resist.

Baltimore Dream: Ron Terwilliger falls in love with a new sport after his dalliances with soccer and women's basketball. Philips Arena becomes the home of the Atlanta Double Takeouts of the Women's Professional Curling League.

Baltimore Fever: During renovations to Conseco Fieldhouse, Coach Lin Dunn told to move the team to Baltimore, Indiana temporarily. Gets confused.

Baltimore Liberty: "Well, we didn't really want to give up the Liberty, but we felt sorry for Baltimore. If they don't cheer up, we'll give them the Jets too."

Baltimore Lynx: Because who wants to play basketball in a clean city full of friendly people? That's no fun! Besides, once winter is over no Minnesotan goes back indoors until October.

Baltimore Mercury: Believed that average height of Mercury guards would increase 2-3 inches after exposure to water.

Baltimore Monarchs: ARCO Arena lease lost in foreclosure crisis. City offers backup location at Churchill Downs Community Park, complete with blacktop court and chain nets. New site deemed unacceptable for WNBA due to lack of restrooms.

Baltimore Mystics: Because Baltimore has had a grudge for years against Washington for losing the Bullets. "Hah! Take that Washington!"

Baltimore Shock: Bill Laimbeer spends most of season watching old Homicide: Life on the Street and The Wire episodes. Decides that Detroit just isn't tough enough any more for either him or the Shock. Later shoots a man just for snoring.

Baltimore Silver Stars: The move was part of Becky's contract. She likes crabcakes, by the way.

Baltimore Sparks: The Sparks need to save on gas money. Have you seen those prices? In car crazy L. A., the Sparks need to penny-pinch. "We can either pay for Lisa's contract for another year, or we can play next year's games in her living room, now which is it?"

Baltimore Storm: According to Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird got tired of hanging around those dirty, filthy hippies.

Baltimore Sun: The Mohegan Sun signs singing legend Celine Dion for one year. Sun forced to vacate arena to make space for Celine's new dressing room, complete with regulation size basketball court.

Baltimore Sky: "We wanted to go somewhere where we'd be @#$@ing appreciated." Besides, with Baltimore's city government it will be like the Sky never left Chicago.