Number 28 from the Miami Heat — or Andre Iguodala, as most people know him — tweeted about the Washington Mystics and Connecticut Sun game on Tuesday and praised Aerial Powers. She scored a career-high 27 points in a 94-89 win, including this stellar long-range three.
Number 28 from the Heat was pretty disrespectful to Aerial Powers
Andre Iguodala praised the Mystics’ Aerial Powers. But he didn’t bother to learn her name.
There was one problem with Iguodala’s cheering however; he didn’t mention Aerial Powers by name.
Finding out Powers’ name isn’t all that difficult. Using the same phone he used for tweeting, he could have spent an extra second Googling ‘Mystics Number 23” to learn that is Aerial Powers, who is part of the reigning WNBA Champion Mystics. Powers found the tweet and replied. It doesn’t take much effort, but that lack of effort is what is at the core of this conversation between Powers and Number 28.
Rather than apologizing, Number 28 from the Heat doubled down with another tweet. He decided to focus on a woman’s “manners” rather than admitting he should have given her credit by name, all while continuing to not mention her by name.
The easier response would have been to admit fault and mention Powers by name.
You can say that this is just a tweet blown out of proportion but proper recognition is important, especially for the WNBA and its players who are often disrespectfully brushed off by a larger basketball audience. The NBA as a whole has been doing its part to highlight the league, most recently with the men’s stars wearing orange hoodies with the WNBA logo to celebrate the league’s first day of the season. And it’s a great start that Andre Iguodala seems to be watching the WNBA’s games, but now he just needs to learn their names.
