Kobe: Three women able to play in NBA...

[mtrot]

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/2853...-right-now

Thoughts?  Has Kobe been smoking too much good stuff, or is there anything to this idea?  I suspect that they wouldn't stay on the court very long at all.

[BigDirk41]

I like Kobe, but this is nonsense. They are great female players. They most likely would get destroyed at the D1 college level against men. This is just Kobe trying to say some positive stuff about female basketball players since his daughter is one. Like I said they are great female players.

[StepBackJay]

I don't watch any WNBA but the modern game would help them you think. Less physical, more skill. You could picture a hyper athletic female being able to play on offense at least if she was a great shooter.

On defense you would just give up too much bc the strength difference is just night and day. It would be hard to hide someone on defense. Maybe if you had someone who had great length as well they could bother shots without having much strength.

Anyways it's not impossible someone could make a team, even if it's for publicity. It would get massive publicity. There are what a couple billion women so it's possible 1 is so athletic and skilled that they could at least flirt with a roster spot.

[IamDougieFresh]

Venus and Serena Williams got destroyed by the 203rd ranked male.

US Women's national soccer team got smacked by FC Dallas's UNDER 15 boys team.

I suspect the gap in basketball is even larger.

[TXBamanut]

Kobe obviously knows more than me about basketball and judging talent....but...knowing more doesn't make you infallible or shield you from being wrong.

I remember I played some pickup ball when I was in college with some of the girls from the college team there.  I'm nothing outstanding, and they were definitely skilled...but naw... we won and we all had to hold back a bit. Consequently, I also caught some of the guys on the university's team over in the gym a a year or so later...got it handed to me.  

I played in the intramural league one year and the redshirt football players had a team...sick...the college girls team would have had ZERO chance even against another sport's athletes.

That's apples to apples, and while the sample size it small, it taught me that I just don't think that in sports where speed, strength and bulk is paramount, that women can't compete with men.  Just my limited personal experience and my opinion.

The first woman to play in the NBA will be a girl named Hanna who used to go by Harold until about 2 years ago...straight up...watch for it.

[IamDougieFresh]

The first woman to play in the NBA will be a girl named Hanna who used to go by Harold until about 2 years ago...straight up...watch for it.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[SleepingHero]

Lol.

Okay Kobe lets put Delle Donne on the Hawks and see what happens.

Give her 20 minutes to score 5 points.  She's a 6'5 center. 

I actually am a big fan of Delle Donne and hoped she went to the Dallas Wings at some point because of her skillset (not that I'm trying to pretend I watch the WNBA, I don't. But from watching some highlights over the years, Delle Donne is a really interesting player).

I mean no disrespect to these female players but c'mon. If a WNBA player could actually hang in the NBA it would have happened already, because NBA teams are always looking for the best players. 37 year old Taurasi, 6'0 SF Maya Moore, and 6'5 center Donne are quite literally the best to have ever played in the WNBA, and they're not even close to the 15th man on any current roster.

[Scott41theMavs]

Keith Van Suck played like a woman in the NBA. Does that count?

[TXBamanut]

Keith Van Suck played like a woman in the NBA. Does that count?

https://giphy.com/gifs/65ODCwM00NVmEyLsX3

[Dahlsim]

I like Kobe, but this is nonsense. They are great female players. They most likely would get destroyed at the D1 college level against men. This is just Kobe trying to say some positive stuff about female basketball players since his daughter is one. Like I said they are great female players.

This is exactly it, Kobe making politically correct remarks even when not reality based.   Maybe he plans to run for office? 

On the topic though, maybe we could get some stats with both women and men Basketball sizes before suggesting what the ladies could do in the men's game?  Or maybe we just like comparing Watermelons to Cantaloupes? 

The official size of the basketball used by the NBA is 29.5 inches in circumference. That's the same size used throughout men's college and high school basketball leagues. The WNBA uses a slightly smaller ball, measuring 28.5 inches in circumference.

[dirkfansince1998]

Baketball is all about athleticism and size. Even the best scheme and incredible skill cannot make up for it. That said in other sports the difference is overrated.
When I was still in Germany my soccer team (all players 16 years old) played a friendly match against a league 1 women teams. Lost 1-8. Athleticism was slightly in our favor but they embarassed us. We barely touched the ball all game long.
That´s obviously not possible in basketball but I think in a sport like baseball, volleyball or soccer it is possible for women to play at the highest level.

[ItsGoTime]

Women refs? Sure.
Women announcers? Yep.
Women coaches? You bet.
Women in the FO? Absolutely (and I think this should be the next frontier for them)
Women players? It's gonna take a LOT more time to get to that point if it actually does happen.

See the Tennis and Soccer examples above for reference, and women in Tennis and Soccer has been a big time professionally competitive thing for a lot longer than the WNBA.

[Dahlsim]

Baketball is all about athleticism and size. Even the best scheme and incredible skill cannot make up for it. That said in other sports the difference is overrated.
When I was still in Germany my soccer team (all players 16 years old) played a friendly match against a league 1 women teams. Lost 1-8. Athleticism was slightly in our favor but they embarrassed us. We barely touched the ball all game long.
That´s obviously not possible in basketball but I think in a sport like baseball, volleyball or soccer it is possible for women to play at the highest level.

Might agree about the differences from sport to sport but when you say at the highest level, I don't think so. 

Keep in mind at the highest level seconds and fractions of the second in speed, slight advantages in strength and acceleration, jumping ability etc. is what separates even the men at the highest level from those that drop down to the next level.  

Physical reality enters into play.  It sounds like even in your soccer example is similar to other sports where the men or man is taken from a lower level of sport to play and compare against higher level females.

[dirkfansince1998]

Baketball is all about athleticism and size. Even the best scheme and incredible skill cannot make up for it. That said in other sports the difference is overrated.
When I was still in Germany my soccer team (all players 16 years old) played a friendly match against a league 1 women teams. Lost 1-8. Athleticism was slightly in our favor but they embarrassed us. We barely touched the ball all game long.
That´s obviously not possible in basketball but I think in a sport like baseball, volleyball or soccer it is possible for women to play at the highest level.

Might agree about the differences from sport to sport but when you say at the highest level, I don't think so. 

Keep in mind at the highest level seconds and fractions of the second in speed, slight advantages in strength and acceleration, jumping ability etc. is what separates even the men at the highest level from those that drop down to the next level.  

Physical reality enters into play.  It sounds like even in your soccer example is similar to other sports where the men or man is taken from a lower level of sport to play and compare against higher level females.

I guess that´s my point. Team sports that aren´t focussing on individual athleticism are the best options for women. I don´t see a reason why a woman cannot be a great setter in volleyball for example.

[Dahlsim]

I think the Williams sisters are a couple of the best examples of women at the pinnacle of their sport.  This was an interesting test against "highest level" male competition. 
1998: Karsten Braasch vs. the Williams sisters

Another event dubbed a "Battle of the Sexes" took place during the 1998 Australian Open[56] between Karsten Braasch and the Williams sisters. Venus and Serena Williams had claimed that they could beat any male player ranked outside the world's top 200, so Braasch, then ranked 203rd, challenged them both. Braasch was described by one journalist as "a man whose training regime centered around a pack of cigarettes and more than a couple of bottles of ice cold lager".[57][56] 

The matches took place on court number 12 in Melbourne Park,[58] after Braasch had finished a round of golf and two shandies. He first took on Serena and after leading 5–0, beat her 6–1. Venus then walked on court and again Braasch was victorious, this time winning 6–2.[56] Braasch said afterwards, "500 and above, no chance". He added that he had played like someone ranked 600th in order to keep the game "fun"[59] and that the big difference was that men can chase down shots much easier and put spin on the ball that female players can't handle. The Williams sisters adjusted their claim to beating men outside the top 350.[56]

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Baketball is all about athleticism and size. Even the best scheme and incredible skill cannot make up for it. That said in other sports the difference is overrated.
When I was still in Germany my soccer team (all players 16 years old) played a friendly match against a league 1 women teams. Lost 1-8. Athleticism was slightly in our favor but they embarrassed us. We barely touched the ball all game long.
That´s obviously not possible in basketball but I think in a sport like baseball, volleyball or soccer it is possible for women to play at the highest level.

Might agree about the differences from sport to sport but when you say at the highest level, I don't think so. 

Keep in mind at the highest level seconds and fractions of the second in speed, slight advantages in strength and acceleration, jumping ability etc. is what separates even the men at the highest level from those that drop down to the next level.  

Physical reality enters into play.  It sounds like even in your soccer example is similar to other sports where the men or man is taken from a lower level of sport to play and compare against higher level females.

I guess that´s my point. Team sports that aren´t focussing on individual athleticism are the best options for women. I don´t see a reason why a woman cannot be a great setter in volleyball for example.

I agree with you there.  You could isolate a particular role on a team and there you have your chance for women to get to the highest level with men. 
A Goalie in hockey a setter in volleyball a field goal kicker in football are a few interesting examples.

[ItsGoTime]

That´s obviously not possible in basketball but I think in a sport like baseball, volleyball or soccer it is possible for women to play at the highest level.

So 16 yo couldn't beat some of the top women (not sure what League 1 is, if it is top women)? Does that mean they can make the jump to men's professional Soccer in Europe? Has it happened? Because that's one of the sports where they've been doing it for a lot longer at a higher level.

Soccer isn't about size and athleticism? Those guys get pretty physical out there, they're also a ton faster/quicker. 

For that example, we can make an apples to apples comparison. How fast are the fastest women sprinters in the world? Now how fast are the fastest men sprinters? I started looking that up and found this article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...ot/260927/

So, for 55 years, "in every sport that can be measured this way, the peak performance of the world's best female athletes tops out at around 90 percent of the peak performance of the world's best male athletes." There is a graph in the article and before the last 55 years, women were a lot lower.

Before someone says, what about the very best women vs the worst of the men competing? Well, women's olympics has been around probably longer than any other womens sport. To that end, there has been more women training and working to be the best and the data has shown a 90% trend for 55 years. That's a lot to overcome. Again from the article "Women today, for example, swim as fast as men did forty years ago. The women's world record for butterfly ties Mark Spitz's 1967 record."

Back to team sports. You have to look at where the women's sport has been competing for a long time and it has to be apples to apples, because women have been competing in SOFTball for a long time, but that isn't BASEball. Also, there is strength issues in baseball as with every sport. Maybe a girl could pinch hit at some point in baseball, and maybe they could hit a 95 mph BASEball at some point, but you couldn't put them on the field and hope that they're gonna throw out a runner at the speed that a male counterpart would. They would have to be able to do both things. And they haven't even started that journey in a competitive manner (to my knowledge) to this point (is there women's professional BASEball?).

I am not trying to beat my chest and say "I am man, hear me roar". I'm just saying as women get better, the men aren't standing still. One last thing from the article: "And there could be social factors that shrink the available pool of women out of which the best athletes can emerge. In the US, let alone in other areas of the world, women make up only 41 percent of high school athletes." That says a lot of it to me.

I think girls would have to be integrated into boys sports long before the professional level in order for that 1 women to emerge. Having that same practice and performance/competition as the boys do while growing up is where the change would occur IMO. Even then, it would take a while for it to actually happen IMO.

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field goal kicker in football

I watched this documentary called "Necessary Roughness" that had the first women field goal kicker. So that has already happened!

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A Goalie in hockey

Don't see it for the same reason a women soccer goalie hasn't emerged.

That article I posted also had a snippet that is another part of the whole reason: 

"Taking a kind of wild shot at which biological factors might affect athletic performance, Hammerman looked at hemoglobin counts and the maximum amount of oxygen an athlete can use in a minute.
And guess what he found? Men have an average of 13.6 to 17.5 grams of hemoglobin per decalliter in their blood. Women have 12.0 to 15.5 g/dl.

The ratio? .88 to .89.

And while maximum oxygen consumption statistics are harder to measure and harder to come by, if you compare them for four accomplished long distance runners of each gender, they average to 72.7 for women and 82.1 for men. 72.7 is about 89 percent of 82.1."

I guess you could take from that that the female athlete in the 15.5 g/dl could compete with the male at 13.6 g/dl.

[dirkfansince1998]

Does that mean they can make the jump to men's professional Soccer in Europe?

We certainly have seen successful pro players that are less athletic than the best women. As Dahlsim pointed out. Certain roles in certain sports don´t require top notch athleticism. They require skill and understanding of the game. That´s not possible in basketball because I cannot hide a bad athlet. In soccer we have seen players like Xavi, Iniesta or Pirlo dominate. They are slow, small and lack strength. Clearly not more athletic than some pro women.

[ItsGoTime]

a setter in volleyball

Even they get put in situations that isn't their "role" on the team. They have to be able to react and have the same athleticism as the males.

Again, if a girl competes all her life against the boys, that is the avenue that this has a chance. Can't take a women who has been competing against lesser competition all her life and expect that jump to be positive.

[IamDougieFresh]

You guys have to be trolling. Women can't compete against the best men in Basketball, Football, Baseball, MMA, Volleyball, Soccer, Tennis, etc.

You know what... That's OK. Women have many other skills that they are better than men at.

[mtrot]

Kobe obviously knows more than me about basketball and judging talent....but...knowing more doesn't make you infallible or shield you from being wrong.

I remember I played some pickup ball when I was in college with some of the girls from the college team there.  I'm nothing outstanding, and they were definitely skilled...but naw... we won and we all had to hold back a bit. Consequently, I also caught some of the guys on the university's team over in the gym a a year or so later...got it handed to me.  

I played in the intramural league one year and the redshirt football players had a team...sick...the college girls team would have had ZERO chance even against another sport's athletes.

That's apples to apples, and while the sample size it small, it taught me that I just don't think that in sports where speed, strength and bulk is paramount, that women can't compete with men.  Just my limited personal experience and my opinion.

The first woman to play in the NBA will be a girl named Hanna who used to go by Harold until about 2 years ago...straight up...watch for it.

Lol, I seriously think it that may happen in the WNBA.  They are already being allowed to compete against and beat women in track and field at the high school level, and nobody seems to be able to do anything to stop it.