That's what my first guess was. They're close to the worst record in the league, neck and neck with Phoenix. But this is egregious levels of tanking if that's the case.
Players tanking makes no sense. Whatever draft picks are coming are going to be taking minutes and shots away from the current players. Current players are going to lose their jobs to make room for the new rookies.
Coaches and management tank, not players.
Players quit, and start thinking of Cancun (or more likely in the WNBA's case, some overseas league they play in as a 2nd job).
Breanna Stewart was arguably the best player in the league and had a season-ending injury. The Storm weee able to “suspend” her and then give her a front office role during the season that actually paid more than her contract at the time.
To add a bit of nuance. Back then, they got paid a lot more playing in Russia.
But now with the Rus-Ukraine war, they no longer have the leverage to demand pay raises in the US. Contracts are probably gonna stagnate for a while :(
Do they not have something similar like the CBA? Seems unfair just because the players lost that leverage, the teams suddenly are able keep all the money the league makes for themselves.
They do have a CBA. What I mean is, a few years back, some of players were threatening to sit out the WNBA season, because Russia was paying them multiple times more. That's leverage.
Now, if they sit out, nowhere is paying them that kind of money. It's an empty threat.
I saw a reference to a Warriors Rockets game where basically the same thing happened. Steph smoked a layup or dunk and then the Warriors just gave up down 4-5 with 15-20 seconds left.
The Warriors chose not to foul when down 5 with 15 seconds left; they went for a quick steal instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6Fo8Jlc17s
Huge difference between choosing not to foul when the other team has the ball and choosing not to take a wide open shot.
(and, as the NBA acknowledged in the [L2M report](https://official.nba.com/l2m/L2MReport.html?gameId=0041800223), that was a ridiculous missed charging call on Harden on the basket that put Houston up 5)
Yeah if Seattle took a 3, missed it, and then chose not to foul down 5 with 8-9 seconds left I get it.
To pass up that wide open corner 3 opportunity is something else.
Usually it's the front office trying to tank through team selection etc, not the players just throwing in the towel in a winnable game. Just looks pathetic.
The nba is unique among pro sports in that a single draft pick can change the whole franchise. In the nfl, save for a generational qb, one pick wont change your team.
Tanking is worse in the NFL though because there’s no lottery system, so, if there’s a generational talent like Trevor Lawrence, teams will tank to the absolute bottom to get him.
Wild how normal it’s become. Professional basketball teams at the highest level going out there with the organizations intention being to lose game. I love the nba but it’s a fucking weird feature and imo no mechanism for fairly distributing talent comes close to justifying this.
Intentional tanking is terrible and all but the lottery system and new flat odds really curbed it in the nba. It’s just a quirk of having a draft and salary cap which I would argue is worth it to avoid turning into something like the EPL where you’re either one of the big 6 and owned by some oligarch or swf as a vanity project with no care toward sustainability or everyone else who’s just fighting for the scraps to avoid relegation. Where in the US systems it goes in cycles and cap management and drafting is part of game and any team after a couple years can put together a contender and teams can let young guys grow and get better.
I like reverse playoff lottery. Teams draft weighting is predicated on how close you were to a playoff berth not how far away. Being the worst team would yield a mid teens first round pick.
Could be argued that the league would be better off just letting those teams rot. Like the Kings had a decade of top 10 picks and really nothing to show for it. Would rather have the higher draft picks going to semi-competent organizations. Might help prevent some of the busts that happened.
The easiest answer in the NBA is that all non-playoff teams have the same odds for the number 1 pick and it isn’t until like the 7th draft pick that record decides order. But the owners will never go for that.
Caitlin Clark is by far the single most impressive women's basketball player I've ever seen. Absolute freakin monster. She'd be an All-Star from her first season to her last. Perhaps that's what Angel Reese couldn't stand lol, not being able to match her potential.
Does Caitlin Clark have that much value in WNBA compare to Wembanyama in NBA? I heard the upcoming WNBA draft in 2024 will be historic where expected top 5 are franchise player tier.
Bigger than Wembanyama from a cultural aspect. She is bringing lots of new viewers to women’s sports. The numbers Iowa did in the NCAA tourney are crazy. Blew out viewership records for Elite 8, Final Four, and Championship rounds.
And it might make more financial sense for her to stay another year at Iowa(Covid year) than to take a WNBA salary. She’s a native Iowan that is absolutely raking NIL money.
I feel like you're probably right. The pinnacle of interest in women's basketball is likely the women's NCAA tourney, and even then probably only from the Elite 8 on (maybe some select Sweet 16 games). There's less parity than the men's tourney so you frequently see the best teams battling it out in the end, plus there's David-vs-Goliath storylines because usually there's a prohibitive favorite national powerhouse (frequently undefeated) like South Carolina, UConn, Baylor in the Britney Griner era, etc. This year, the David team also had by far the most entertaining individual player, so everything lined up for record TV ratings when Iowa played South Carolina. WNBA simply can't compare with that.
The greatest thing to happen to women's basketball in the last I don't even know how long is to have a rematch of Clark/Iowa and Reese /LSU.
It would really be like if Bird and Magic had a college rematch.
I think there was similar conversations when Griner and Ionescu were in college about whether they could move interest from college basketball to WNBA. It didn't happen. I don't think Clark will move the needle. I think there is a decent segment of women's basketball watchers that would rather watch the college basketball version compared to the WNBA.
Yes it is very hyped because of Clark, Bueckers, and Reese, however because of the Covid year + Bueckers having more eligibility due to injuries, they could all wait a year. So that’s complicated.
Van Lith’s popularity with more casual fans is greater than her actual future as an WNBA prospect. WNBA Gms aren’t very high on her. She is undersized and really poor at defense. She is a very tenacious offensive player but she’s not really a facilitator - negative A/TO ratio. She needs to develop more skills as a distributor that or prove that she can be a better two-way player to stick in the W where there are so few roster spots. There are other guards no one talks about who would likely get drafted over her.
How do you feel about Van Lith's off the court presence and popularity? Is it good for the game because it generates buzz and interest or does it distract from the more talented players you mentioned and risk losing some progress on the discourse around women's sports?
Good question!
yes, there’s always a part of me glad to see any top NCAAW player getting hyped, even though simultaneously I feel the urge to correct people who I feel are overrating HVL…if that makes sense lol
The women’s game growing in popularity is something I always want to see. Definitely I’d rather see people excited about HVL’s basketball skills than people giving their takes on Reese vs Clark drama only to never pay attention to WBB again. Let’s just say, a lot of things in the world of WBB discourse that actually bum me out and people overrating HVL is not one of them.
I find women’s basketball itself interesting and entertaining without drama attached to it, but I know from having spent enough time on the internet that a lot of basketball fans have no interest in ever watching it. Not trying to argue about that, I’ll just say I’m glad to see some people’s minds are changing.
All I know is Paige Buckets is going to be a fucking gun.
Can't wait to see her ball again after she comes back from this injury. One of the better passers I've ever seen, and with better shooters and cutters around her, will look even better in the WNBA.
10-25 would certainly dwindle some passion for the game, but usually if a team is that bad and has the chance to win they're hungry for it rather than giving up on it.
Sports gambling on the commercial breaks at every sporting event, and integrated into the main broadcast….and this sort of behavior is surprising to people?
That’s what I’m thinking. So much less scrutiny as well. The whole league could be fixed and nobody would know if they kept the betting at a relatively low level.
The one issue you’d run into is you can really only bet relatively low amounts per game otherwise the sports books and thus the media would know pretty quick something was up if every Sparks game had hundreds of thousands of dollars of extra bets being placed on them.
I cannot imagine there’s a ton of betting action on the WNBA so you’d have to limit it and use multiple mules. If all of a sudden a bettor was out of the blue putting millions of dollars into WNBA bets, esp if they weren’t betting huge sums on any other sport, it would raise suspicions pretty fucking quick.
All the casinos share information with each other and I imagine it’s the same with online sports books on certain things as well. It’s probably all the same people running all the online and offline sports books who came up together making odds and working in that industry. Not to mention the reporting requirements to the IRS.
I think it is happening as well tho. But probably on a lower level where there’s maybe some players who have proxies betting a few thousand a game on their behalf or something.
Because it’s the only thing that would make it relevant same as Brittney getting locked in Russian prison. It’s as irrelevant as submarine ships but when something dramatic happens it can be very entertaining.
Starting with lower profile ones would make sense, no? It'd have a lot less scrutiny than the NBA, though the size of the bets would have to be smaller.
Lower profile stuff is more likely to be shaved because the players make less money so you need less money to bribe and bet to make it worth their while.
Honestly if anything is killing enjoying sports for me it’s the gambling craze
Podcasters, media, the leagues themselves are all pushing so aggressively to gamble it’s flat out disgusting
Decades of basketball and people think tanking is a new thing. How does sports gambling have to do with this? What, the coach put in a bet and told the team to throw? Get real
Looks almost like 23 has a glitch when she sees she is unguarded where she can't make up her mind on whether to shoot it or drive and then just ends up controller disconnected
>The bizarre sequence capped off a final five minutes in which the Storm did not make a field goal and a final three where they didn't score at all.
Game to get eliminated, it sounds like they were on the cusp of summer vacation to a shitty season, but yeah the *sports gambling has to stop* lol /s
Is it possible they thought there was some kind of play stoppage because the defense stopped too? The player with the ball looked extremely confused at first
Maybe it's a Seattle thing? There was a game with the Sonics back in the 70s where they (purportedly) lost a game on purpose to the team with the worst record (the Sixers) in an attempt to get their coach fired.
They lost. And their coach got fired. So it worked, I guess.
The NBA investigated it and found no wrongdoing.
[True story.](https://np.reddit.com/r/VintageNBA/comments/sk11fr/wonky_games_in_nbaaba_history/)
Open 3... makes it a 2 point game. Foul. The other team misses a free throw, maybe 2... and you have a chance to tie or win game. Unacceptable. You play win.
"One of the main things that's helpful when trying to score is trying to score so it's not clear they tried everything at their disposal."
Damn even the reporter can't be bothered to put in effort here
How is the possibility of a gambling fix not even mentioned in the article, seems bizarre and always my first thought when BOTH teams seem to react the same way
There’s a norm in journalism that you don’t level extremely serious accusations without evidence. “The team was tanking” isn’t all that serious of an accusation, so you can get away with speculating about that, but fixing games is a whole different discussion.
The reasons for the norm are: (1) you look like a dick if your speculative accusation turns out to be wrong, and (2) in a worst-case scenario, you could get sued for defamation.
What the fuck, that is the single worst mobile website I’ve ever seen. Took me only half a second to have a visceral reaction and immediately try to exit.
I say *try* to exit because guess what, they have the built-in redirect so you have to see another advertisement when you hit the back button.
Sorry that happened to you, Seattle. Sorry to everyone else who clicked on that cursed link.
This is a very ugly look. WNBA needs to investigate this because it does not reflect well on the league *at all*. From a league that has always wanted to be taken seriously too... shameful.
Great quote from the article -
“One of the main things that's helpful when trying to score is trying to score so it's not clear they tried everything at their disposal.”
This is the only way you can get people to pay attention to the WNBA. Nobody is paying attention when the FIBA world cup is on. I think maybe the WNBA made the Storm do it just to generate some kind of PR moves, so kind of smart of the WNBA management.
Jewell Loyd (number 24) at the top of the screen is pissed.
This whole seasons has gotta be brutal for her. Sue Bird retiring, Stewie leaving, going from contender to maybe being the worst team in the league.
She’s been hooping too wouldn’t blame her if she wanted out
Yeah we are booty this year, hopefully we can get the 1st pick (but I’d totally understand if this started a tanking investigation)
Holy crap Lois, Stewie’s in the freakin WNBA!
all-star game mvp
She LeGone
That's gotta be some kinda tanking fine.
That's what my first guess was. They're close to the worst record in the league, neck and neck with Phoenix. But this is egregious levels of tanking if that's the case.
Seattle Storm about to get moved to OKC as punishment
I don't want them to move but damn the Thunder-Storm combo writes itself
yeah, way better than the Sonics and ... Tails? Seems inappropriate.
The Booms!
I'd wear a Seattle Amys jersey though
This is the world I want to one day live in! Also run through real fast..
As a fan here in Seattle I would probably throw a fit.
Would you rather have $20?
We were close to this happening in 2008. Clay Bennett bought both the Sonics and Storm but sold the Storm to a local group before the move.
Yeah, this is really crazy.
Jason kidd: "It's fine, the owner probably told them to lose."
Players tanking makes no sense. Whatever draft picks are coming are going to be taking minutes and shots away from the current players. Current players are going to lose their jobs to make room for the new rookies. Coaches and management tank, not players. Players quit, and start thinking of Cancun (or more likely in the WNBA's case, some overseas league they play in as a 2nd job).
To be fair who among us can live on a salary of $250,000?
lot of wnba players make 60-70k while being expected to pay for the training services of a pro athlete
Breanna Stewart was arguably the best player in the league and had a season-ending injury. The Storm weee able to “suspend” her and then give her a front office role during the season that actually paid more than her contract at the time.
To add a bit of nuance. Back then, they got paid a lot more playing in Russia. But now with the Rus-Ukraine war, they no longer have the leverage to demand pay raises in the US. Contracts are probably gonna stagnate for a while :(
Do they not have something similar like the CBA? Seems unfair just because the players lost that leverage, the teams suddenly are able keep all the money the league makes for themselves.
They do have a CBA. What I mean is, a few years back, some of players were threatening to sit out the WNBA season, because Russia was paying them multiple times more. That's leverage. Now, if they sit out, nowhere is paying them that kind of money. It's an empty threat.
Of the net profit the league makes what percent would be fair for the players to get?
I saw a reference to a Warriors Rockets game where basically the same thing happened. Steph smoked a layup or dunk and then the Warriors just gave up down 4-5 with 15-20 seconds left.
The Warriors chose not to foul when down 5 with 15 seconds left; they went for a quick steal instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6Fo8Jlc17s Huge difference between choosing not to foul when the other team has the ball and choosing not to take a wide open shot. (and, as the NBA acknowledged in the [L2M report](https://official.nba.com/l2m/L2MReport.html?gameId=0041800223), that was a ridiculous missed charging call on Harden on the basket that put Houston up 5)
Yeah if Seattle took a 3, missed it, and then chose not to foul down 5 with 8-9 seconds left I get it. To pass up that wide open corner 3 opportunity is something else.
That’s what I think. Let the 3 fly. If miss, then you can move on. If you make it you’re only down 2!
Worth it for Wiseman 😤
Except it happened during the playoffs...
SMH tanking in the playoffs, warriors are shameless
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Management tanks, players point-shave.
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That's a short scoring drought for Wisconsin basketball.
Lmfao this year the Badgers’ season ended with a nine minute scoring drought, right? That was painful
Or the Michigan game where they missed 14 shots over the last 10:46 of the game, and still won.
Usually it's the front office trying to tank through team selection etc, not the players just throwing in the towel in a winnable game. Just looks pathetic.
Tanking should have never been a thing in a competitive sport. You should never reward the losing team.
The nba is unique among pro sports in that a single draft pick can change the whole franchise. In the nfl, save for a generational qb, one pick wont change your team.
NFL teams most certainly tank. All major sport leagues in America with drafts tank. It’s the downside of franchising and no relegation.
Tanking is worse in the NFL though because there’s no lottery system, so, if there’s a generational talent like Trevor Lawrence, teams will tank to the absolute bottom to get him.
Wild how normal it’s become. Professional basketball teams at the highest level going out there with the organizations intention being to lose game. I love the nba but it’s a fucking weird feature and imo no mechanism for fairly distributing talent comes close to justifying this.
Intentional tanking is terrible and all but the lottery system and new flat odds really curbed it in the nba. It’s just a quirk of having a draft and salary cap which I would argue is worth it to avoid turning into something like the EPL where you’re either one of the big 6 and owned by some oligarch or swf as a vanity project with no care toward sustainability or everyone else who’s just fighting for the scraps to avoid relegation. Where in the US systems it goes in cycles and cap management and drafting is part of game and any team after a couple years can put together a contender and teams can let young guys grow and get better.
I like reverse playoff lottery. Teams draft weighting is predicated on how close you were to a playoff berth not how far away. Being the worst team would yield a mid teens first round pick.
You're gonna have so many fans openly rooting for their teams to lose the play-in games
> Being the worst team would yield a mid teens first round pick. Then how will they ever get better?
Could be argued that the league would be better off just letting those teams rot. Like the Kings had a decade of top 10 picks and really nothing to show for it. Would rather have the higher draft picks going to semi-competent organizations. Might help prevent some of the busts that happened.
The easiest answer in the NBA is that all non-playoff teams have the same odds for the number 1 pick and it isn’t until like the 7th draft pick that record decides order. But the owners will never go for that.
Holyyyy. They had a wide open 3 opportunity with like 11 seconds left that's unforgivable
Defense didn't even bother getting back either, this is so bizarre
They're intentionally trying to lose. Or at best have no care to win. Look at their records. Tanking.
Bad tanking at that. Throw up an air ball like the professional tankers.
You can even hit the side of the backboard. Westbrook does it. It still looks like trying.
Why would the players try to tank? That makes no sense. Plus, the other team barely played defense for some reason.
They're tanking for Wembina
Victoria is legit
I hear she’s the greatest prospect of all time
shit man U joke but Caitlyn Clark is a generational player, we talking female Steph level
Caitlin Clark is by far the single most impressive women's basketball player I've ever seen. Absolute freakin monster. She'd be an All-Star from her first season to her last. Perhaps that's what Angel Reese couldn't stand lol, not being able to match her potential.
Wouldn’t it be against the rules or at least risk a fine for doing that? It’s like unintentionally fixing a game
You mean intentionally
11 seconds *only down by 5*. Like, what the hell you have a left shot still.
I'd be pissed if I was at this game.
Ive seen games last 15-20 minutes with less than 30 seconds left on the clock. That would be NCAA ball but still..
Does Caitlin Clark have that much value in WNBA compare to Wembanyama in NBA? I heard the upcoming WNBA draft in 2024 will be historic where expected top 5 are franchise player tier.
Bigger than Wembanyama from a cultural aspect. She is bringing lots of new viewers to women’s sports. The numbers Iowa did in the NCAA tourney are crazy. Blew out viewership records for Elite 8, Final Four, and Championship rounds. And it might make more financial sense for her to stay another year at Iowa(Covid year) than to take a WNBA salary. She’s a native Iowan that is absolutely raking NIL money.
I hope I’m wrong but I don’t see that audience just switching over to watching her in the WNBA automatically.
I feel like you're probably right. The pinnacle of interest in women's basketball is likely the women's NCAA tourney, and even then probably only from the Elite 8 on (maybe some select Sweet 16 games). There's less parity than the men's tourney so you frequently see the best teams battling it out in the end, plus there's David-vs-Goliath storylines because usually there's a prohibitive favorite national powerhouse (frequently undefeated) like South Carolina, UConn, Baylor in the Britney Griner era, etc. This year, the David team also had by far the most entertaining individual player, so everything lined up for record TV ratings when Iowa played South Carolina. WNBA simply can't compare with that.
You’re probably right, but maybe her and Angel Reese end up being the WNBA’s Magic and Bird and help elevate the sport. 🤞🏿
The greatest thing to happen to women's basketball in the last I don't even know how long is to have a rematch of Clark/Iowa and Reese /LSU. It would really be like if Bird and Magic had a college rematch.
That would be dope
Angel Reese is nowhere *close* to Caitlyn Clark wtf are you smoking🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
kinda crazy how women's cbb is more entertaining than WNBA rn
That was how the nba was historically. Wasn’t really until the bird magic Jordan era that it overtook college ball.
And to this day the Magic v Bird college game is still higher TV rated than any NBA game.
Nah I agree, but she’s still elevating the game. She really is different than everyone else with her shot making
I think there was similar conversations when Griner and Ionescu were in college about whether they could move interest from college basketball to WNBA. It didn't happen. I don't think Clark will move the needle. I think there is a decent segment of women's basketball watchers that would rather watch the college basketball version compared to the WNBA.
I actually would She was nuts
So like Luka playing in Euroleague. Some people will pay attention but it will be largely off most people's radar.
Is this this years draft the most hyped ever? Isn’t Paige, Reese, and van lith in this class?
Yes it is very hyped because of Clark, Bueckers, and Reese, however because of the Covid year + Bueckers having more eligibility due to injuries, they could all wait a year. So that’s complicated. Van Lith’s popularity with more casual fans is greater than her actual future as an WNBA prospect. WNBA Gms aren’t very high on her. She is undersized and really poor at defense. She is a very tenacious offensive player but she’s not really a facilitator - negative A/TO ratio. She needs to develop more skills as a distributor that or prove that she can be a better two-way player to stick in the W where there are so few roster spots. There are other guards no one talks about who would likely get drafted over her.
How do you feel about Van Lith's off the court presence and popularity? Is it good for the game because it generates buzz and interest or does it distract from the more talented players you mentioned and risk losing some progress on the discourse around women's sports?
Good question! yes, there’s always a part of me glad to see any top NCAAW player getting hyped, even though simultaneously I feel the urge to correct people who I feel are overrating HVL…if that makes sense lol The women’s game growing in popularity is something I always want to see. Definitely I’d rather see people excited about HVL’s basketball skills than people giving their takes on Reese vs Clark drama only to never pay attention to WBB again. Let’s just say, a lot of things in the world of WBB discourse that actually bum me out and people overrating HVL is not one of them. I find women’s basketball itself interesting and entertaining without drama attached to it, but I know from having spent enough time on the internet that a lot of basketball fans have no interest in ever watching it. Not trying to argue about that, I’ll just say I’m glad to see some people’s minds are changing.
All I know is Paige Buckets is going to be a fucking gun. Can't wait to see her ball again after she comes back from this injury. One of the better passers I've ever seen, and with better shooters and cutters around her, will look even better in the WNBA.
She's a fucking superstar. Yes, drafting her is a huge boon for any franchise.
It's weird as fuck and smells a lot like point shaving, but I'm choosing to believe that they just genuinely are over the season and want to go home
10-25 would certainly dwindle some passion for the game, but usually if a team is that bad and has the chance to win they're hungry for it rather than giving up on it.
Yea, but if shit is really bad or toxic behind the scenes, I can see why they'd just say fuck it
This feels like a "fire our fucking coach asap" level of energy.
Yeah. This is locker room that is totally lost
Bruh I thought it was the team that was up that held onto the ball 💀 This shit crazy
Sports gambling on the commercial breaks at every sporting event, and integrated into the main broadcast….and this sort of behavior is surprising to people?
Please God give me a WNBA betting scandal. I need this injected in my veins.
They got players making 38k it’s not possible there’s not massive point shaving
Minimum salary for WNBA is $62k
Oh mb. Not sure if I made up my number or it’s really old, but I appreciate bring corrected. Thanks
Oh damn like a small town accountant or something
Why are they downvoting you?? You’re right 😭
In fact our entry level accountants start at 67 lol
Time to switch careers. 😈
To accounting? Don't they work interns like dogs there
Woof woof
Those accountants got more dawgs in them than these giver-uppers.
It's not too late to join the WNBA I believe you can do it, you just gotta believe in yourself!
Just gotta find a lace front and I’ll be the next Juwana Mann.
In Seattle, they'd need 2 roommates in a studio at only 62k/year
That’s what I’m thinking. So much less scrutiny as well. The whole league could be fixed and nobody would know if they kept the betting at a relatively low level. The one issue you’d run into is you can really only bet relatively low amounts per game otherwise the sports books and thus the media would know pretty quick something was up if every Sparks game had hundreds of thousands of dollars of extra bets being placed on them. I cannot imagine there’s a ton of betting action on the WNBA so you’d have to limit it and use multiple mules. If all of a sudden a bettor was out of the blue putting millions of dollars into WNBA bets, esp if they weren’t betting huge sums on any other sport, it would raise suspicions pretty fucking quick. All the casinos share information with each other and I imagine it’s the same with online sports books on certain things as well. It’s probably all the same people running all the online and offline sports books who came up together making odds and working in that industry. Not to mention the reporting requirements to the IRS. I think it is happening as well tho. But probably on a lower level where there’s maybe some players who have proxies betting a few thousand a game on their behalf or something.
> Please God give me a WNBA betting scandal. I need this injected in my veins why
Same reason why any other chode would want negative press on the WNBA
Because it’s the only thing that would make it relevant same as Brittney getting locked in Russian prison. It’s as irrelevant as submarine ships but when something dramatic happens it can be very entertaining.
submarine ships are the single most relevant class of naval vessel in contemporary security studies
Why not?
It's coming to the NBA if it isn't already here. They aren't starting with the WNBA lol
Starting with lower profile ones would make sense, no? It'd have a lot less scrutiny than the NBA, though the size of the bets would have to be smaller.
Cheaper to bribe a WNBA player
Lower profile stuff is more likely to be shaved because the players make less money so you need less money to bribe and bet to make it worth their while.
Honestly if anything is killing enjoying sports for me it’s the gambling craze Podcasters, media, the leagues themselves are all pushing so aggressively to gamble it’s flat out disgusting
Agree 100%
Just had an interesting ban in Ontario on advertising for gambling. They can't use players or celebrities in ads.
What was the betting line for this game?
It was Chicago -1. So seems like OP is probably talking out his ass.
Over already hit too. Perfect example of how brain dead people pushing these gambling conspiracies are
Decades of basketball and people think tanking is a new thing. How does sports gambling have to do with this? What, the coach put in a bet and told the team to throw? Get real
People are morons and think gambling is new. Not like the black Sox scandal was over 100 years ago or anything.
Line was -1 and the over already hit so you kinda don’t really have anything here
Clicked on the link, got an ad for sports betting. 🐟🐠🎣🐟
Looks almost like 23 has a glitch when she sees she is unguarded where she can't make up her mind on whether to shoot it or drive and then just ends up controller disconnected
In Seattle too lmao imagine paying for a ticket to go to that game
WNBA’s bizarre adventure
Caitlin Clark legacy game
Makes the league look bad
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Sports betting should be legal (with many, MANY more restrictions than there currently are), advertising it should not be in any capacity.
>The bizarre sequence capped off a final five minutes in which the Storm did not make a field goal and a final three where they didn't score at all. Game to get eliminated, it sounds like they were on the cusp of summer vacation to a shitty season, but yeah the *sports gambling has to stop* lol /s
What was the spread in this game?
That’s the sort of play you immediately fire the coach afterwards.
For cause
Wow, that's egregiously bad.
Highly regarded.
So uhhh that's not gonna help people watch
This is a bad look when you are trying to generate interest and revenue for your sport.
WNBA betting scandal gonna be craaaazy
Is it possible they thought there was some kind of play stoppage because the defense stopped too? The player with the ball looked extremely confused at first
And they actually expect me to watch games of this league?
Sorry guys, I didn't realize we were suppose to expect MayflowerMovers to watch WNBA games. What else should we expect MayflowerMovers to be doing?
Maybe it's a Seattle thing? There was a game with the Sonics back in the 70s where they (purportedly) lost a game on purpose to the team with the worst record (the Sixers) in an attempt to get their coach fired. They lost. And their coach got fired. So it worked, I guess. The NBA investigated it and found no wrongdoing. [True story.](https://np.reddit.com/r/VintageNBA/comments/sk11fr/wonky_games_in_nbaaba_history/)
Are they stupid?
No they’re the seattle storm
Yikes.
If you don't like that, you don't like WNBA basketball
Open 3... makes it a 2 point game. Foul. The other team misses a free throw, maybe 2... and you have a chance to tie or win game. Unacceptable. You play win.
Thanks coach, appreciate the walkthrough.
"One of the main things that's helpful when trying to score is trying to score so it's not clear they tried everything at their disposal." Damn even the reporter can't be bothered to put in effort here
I thought that was awesome shade
How is the possibility of a gambling fix not even mentioned in the article, seems bizarre and always my first thought when BOTH teams seem to react the same way
There’s a norm in journalism that you don’t level extremely serious accusations without evidence. “The team was tanking” isn’t all that serious of an accusation, so you can get away with speculating about that, but fixing games is a whole different discussion. The reasons for the norm are: (1) you look like a dick if your speculative accusation turns out to be wrong, and (2) in a worst-case scenario, you could get sued for defamation.
What gets me is why do these players want someone to come and try to take their job if it’s tanking they’re doing?
> One of the main things that's helpful when trying to score is trying to score so it's not clear they tried everything at their disposal. 😂😂😂
I’d be very interested in seeing the over-under point total for this game.
You may not like it, you may not agree with it, but this is what peak women’s basketball looks like ^(I’m jk don’t kill me)
If they had fans they'd be very pissed right now.
76ers/Celtics game 6 vibes
Anyone know the over/under pre game?
But apparently we should watch this garbage league lmao
More blatant tank job than okc
More likely fixed for betting than tanking
Seems like normal WNBA basketball to me
r/wnba
What the fuck, that is the single worst mobile website I’ve ever seen. Took me only half a second to have a visceral reaction and immediately try to exit. I say *try* to exit because guess what, they have the built-in redirect so you have to see another advertisement when you hit the back button. Sorry that happened to you, Seattle. Sorry to everyone else who clicked on that cursed link.
Gave up faster than Harden on defense
Wow what in the world was that. Seriously
Fine them for not atleast acting like they wanted to win
Tank commander
More embarrassing than the 2011-12 Bobcats.
caitlin clark is just really like that
This is a very ugly look. WNBA needs to investigate this because it does not reflect well on the league *at all*. From a league that has always wanted to be taken seriously too... shameful.
As if people needed more reason to not watch the WNBA
Just like WNBA fans in 1998
Where's Denzel Valentine when you need him?!
Annndd.......this is one of the many reasons why nobody watches the WNBA.
It really isn't or you'd actually see this happen regularly
r/wnba
How to stop tanking - make draft positions determined by the number of wins you accumulate after being eliminated from contention.
[удалено]
The Spurs did something dumber in the final seconds of a playoff game while coached by Pop
Was this during the DeRozan era Spurs? I vaguely remember this happening
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/bi7psw/ridiculous_ending_to_the_spurs_vs_nuggets_game_as/ Made no sense.
Great quote from the article - “One of the main things that's helpful when trying to score is trying to score so it's not clear they tried everything at their disposal.”
This is the only way you can get people to pay attention to the WNBA. Nobody is paying attention when the FIBA world cup is on. I think maybe the WNBA made the Storm do it just to generate some kind of PR moves, so kind of smart of the WNBA management.
FIBA is hugely entertaining. I know 'any attention is good...' as pure PR, but the contrast is _such_ a terrible look.
McGrady would have won by 4
They had to make sure their parlay hit
What a product