Saturday, September 1, 2012

Interesting question

Does the Atlanta Dream player-coach dispute show the WNBA's progress?


But down in Atlanta we have a regular old dispute between a women's player, coach and franchise. Makes one think back to the good old Allen Iverson days in Philadelphia.

Here are the facts:

The Atlanta Dream's Angel McCoughtry, the WNBA's top player, came back from London with a gold medal as part of the USA’s winning women’s basketball team. One of the assistant coaches on that team was Marynell Meadors, the head coach and general manager of the Dream.

Whatever was happening, McCoughtry and Meadors were not seeing eye-to-eye.

The Atlanta owners, taking a page from the Orlando Magic with Dwight Howard (and that worked out real well for them didn’t it?), decided to fire Meadors and make assistant coach Fred Williams not only the interim the head coach but the general manager as well.

Just because they apparently want the star player to be happy doesn’t mean they want to add another salary and get an experienced general manager after all.

Williams immediately suspended McCoughtry for a violation of team rules and told her she have to agree to some things in writing to have the suspension lifted.


My answer: heck no.

My mantra: fire Trudi Lacey.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank You.

What a goofy original piece by this guy.

1) McCouoghtry isn't the top WNBA player. Top scorer doesn't equal top player. Only someone that doesn't get BB would take that position.

2) NBA / WNBA comparisons don't help the WNBA. They need to knock it off.

3) The WNBA is in a very different place from a business development standpoint than the NBA is. Actions taken by NBA spoiled ballers and owners don't apply to the current state of the WNBA.

These are critical times for the WNBA:

- McCoughtry taking Prima Donna to a new level
- Cambage contract default
- Phoenix sandbagging for draft pick preference
- Ongoing Mystic franchise management issues

Maybe these are just "growing pains", but after 16 years the league needs to get over it, find a market and move forward.

I hope the WNBA succeeds but if they are going to do so they need a true leader of the operation. Unfortunately Stern's decision to drop a marketing person into the top WNBA management job appears to be a disaster.

Zero leadership going on right now from the League.