NEW ORLEANS — The best women’s basketball players in the world always seem out of place in a game that also featured a Mannequin Challenge and Nick Cannon eating nachos on the bench.
Still, the Celebrity Game is now the lone place at NBA All-Star Weekend that highlights WNBA players for a national TV audience, ever since the Shooting Stars Competition was canceled last year. So this year, WNBA MVP Nneka Ogwumike, WNBA Finals MVP Candace Parker and five-time WNBA All-Star Lindsay Whalen laced ’em up for the Celebrity Game.
“Initially I kind of went back and forth on it, but it’s all in fun. I’m not trying to come out and prove anything,” Parker told For The Win after her West team lost 88-59 Friday at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. “So, it was a fun experience. I passed the rock, got everybody involved. Obviously we wanted the score to be less than it was, but, you know how it goes.”
Ogwumike and Whalen were quick to say they had fun, and that’s what counts. But if the NBA wants to incorporate WNBA players in its All-Star Weekend, is making them defend Chopped judges and Daily Show correspondents really the best option?
“I think it would be fun to add an event just for the WNBA players, I think it would be a good idea,” Parker said. “Or maybe the Skills Challenge? Maybe allow one WNBA player to be in the skills challenge or something like that.”
Ogwumike liked her Los Angeles Sparks teammate’s idea. And she knows what the result would be.
“Oh, yeah — no doubt she could win,” she said.
Parker even presented evidence: “I think (I would win),” she said. “A big man won last time, right?”
But Whalen, a Minnesota Lynx point guard, seemed skeptical of adding more. She said that WNBA players attending NBA All-Star Weekend are highly involved in things like clinics and charity duties already.
Plus, she wouldn’t have been able to play with Jason “White Chocolate” Williams, who dished out several assists to her.
“He’s a hero of mine growing up, so to be able to be on the same court as him and start in the same backcourt as him was really cool,” Whalen said. “I watched him and Baron Davis growing up.”
The easiest solution, though, is bringing back Shooting Stars. Yes, Chris Bosh, Swin Cash and Dominique Wilkins won three years in a row. But the competition, where an NBA star, a WNBA star and an NBA legend team up to make shots around the court, was a lot of fun.
“I always thought that the Shooting Stars was a great idea,” Ogwumike said. “I’m not exactly sure what else they could do. Maybe just involve the WNBA players in more extracurriculars concerning the game. Maybe have them as All-Star coaches. But Shooting Stars, I didn’t think it was so bad.”
It’s got to be better than running into the Bucks’ owner.
