WNBA stars don’t need to play in the NBA

Promoting the many superstar players of the Women’s National Basketball Association doesn’t have to come at the expense of denigrating the league itself. Yet treating the WNBA as a league lesser than its sister organization has become a common trope for those who don’t know all that much about it.

The latest example came Wednesday when a clip from a CNN interview with Kobe Bryant was distributed and then aggregated by the masses. A two-minute video featured Bryant being asked numerous hot-take questions across several sports including: “Where do you think Lionel Messi ranks among the best athletes of all time” and if he thought his Lakers team with Shaquille O’Neal could beat LeBron James and Anthony Davis’s. The interviewer was chasing soundbites.

Then he asked the final question, “Do you think a woman could play in the NBA one day?”

There’s nothing unique to the hypothetical of women playing in the men’s basketball league, and Bryant wasn’t the first to answer about it. In 2011, ESPN published an entire piece about the idea of women playing in the NBA with quotes from Geno Auriemma, Tara Vanderveer, Doc Rivers and more. In 2013, Mark Cuban agreed that he’d consider drafting Brittney Griner to the Dallas Mavericks. In 2020, we’re still stuck on the topic, and it sucks.

Here’s why.

Regardless of the response that comes after pondering the existence of a woman playing in a men’s sports league, the question itself tells whoever is listening that the WNBA is inferior to the NBA. Rather than appreciating the W, we’re asking who is so good in the women’s league that they’re ready to play in a men’s league.

This question isn’t helping WNBA players in the way the interviewer might think. And the answer provides virtually no gains no matter where it goes. Either the subject doesn’t believe women can compete with men, or they do. And validating the question only perpetuates the belief that rising to the top of a women’s sports league isn’t enough.

That’s Bryant’s fault in this situation. Just seconds prior, he put his foot down when asked to compare his Lakers with James’, saying, “I don’t weigh in on hypotheticals. As a competitor, there’s nothing you can do about them. You can’t debate yourself to winning something. That’s the beauty about sports. You either win or you lose. In debate culture, there’s never a clear winner.” He then proceeded to answer the hypothetical of women playing in the NBA. If Bryant wants to be a talking head on the WNBA, he has responsibility to shut this line of questioning down, too.

There are simple solutions to break this problem, and it starts with media organizations hiring those who follow the WNBA. Those who know the league won’t fall to the senseless trap of comparing the two leagues, and, more importantly, will find better subjects to talk about within the W itself.

Creating engaging soundbites about the WNBA doesn’t require magic. The questions to ask aren’t hidden. If you’ve paid attention to any men’s sport before, the same topics of conversation will entertain this league’s audience. “Who are the top five players in the league?” could start some debate. Maybe “who will win Rookie of the Year?” “Will the Mystics repeat as champions?” There’s plenty to ask and have answered. No need to overthink.

The WNBA is and can be great on its own merit. That’s what the players and league are banking on by agreeing to a brand new collective bargaining agreement on Jan. 14 that’s set to nearly double a star’s max contract value and exponentially raise marketing funds. The best way to promote women’s sports is simply by promoting the women in sports.