So I'll drag out the old story just so we're all clear on how this would go.
Two friends of mine worked for the Rockets / Comets in the late 90s when the Comets first got in the league. The Comets had one of the best collections of talent ever assembled on one tea - Sheryl Swoopes, who to this day is a top 5-10 all-time female college talent; Cynthia Cooper, the surprise best player in the league the first couple of years in the WNBA, Tina Thompson, and Kim Perrot. In one form or another that was the core of the group that won the first 4 WNBA titles. In Seasons 2-4, they went 80-14 in the regular seasons and were unmatched by anyone.
In the first season, they scrimmaged against the teams loosely made up of young women who played locally at UH, TSU, or Rice, as it was the summer and none of them had restrictions.
However, the playoffs of that first season were held in late August, by which time the college girls had gone back to school, which meant they were now "in season", and playing pickup vs. professionals wasn't going to happen.
So to hastily prepare for the post-season, they recruited a team of Rockets employees - all men - who had played either high school or some level of college ball. There were no ringers on this team; maybe 1-2 had played some D-1 at a small school and most were in their 20s. One of my friends had played 4 years at a 4A high school and had played intramurals with me at A&M. He was a solid player for a pickup game, but he wouldn't have even made it as last guy on the bench for the Aggies.
The first scrimmage between the two teams was somewhat of a novelty for the organizations and plenty of people went to see the Comets mop the floor with the guys, except that didn't happen. Not even a little bit .While I've lost what the final score was over the years, it was somewhere around 113-71 for the men. That's right kids, 12-15 guys who had never practiced together even once, nor played in at least 2-3 years on any sort of competitive level were destroying the soon-to-be WNBA champions by 40 points.
And why was that? The same reason Caitlin Clark would have no shot in hell in the NBA. Bigger, stronger, faster, more aggressive. Nothing sexist there, just millions of years of evolution and gender roles. My friend says he had 10 blocked shots in the first two quarters, and they were eventually told to "stop doing that" because it wasn't a realistic representation of the New York LIberty.
They were all told not to talk about it, which as you can see worked great since I remember the story 25+ years later. The next day, the doors to the Summit were locked, no one was able to wander over, and the men were not allowed to try to block shots or run fast breaks. They also didn't keep score, although I heard it wast still a blowout, but not quite as bad.
I really like women's basketball at a high level, but having her play in a real NBA game would make women's athletics look like a snail racing a Ferrari. There's nothing to be gained from it.
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