WNBA Finally Gets Interesting-Brawl Between Sparks and Shock

from www.examiner.com
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The WNBA came out swinging this season with a marketing campaign that stressed the toughness of the players and promised the style of play would be interesting enough for men's basketball fans to tune in.

Last night that promise was fulfilled with a last second on-court brawl involving the league's superstar rookie, Candace Parker and a member of a 2 time championship team coached by former NBA "Bad Boys" Bill Laimbeer and Rick Mahorn.

The LA Sparks coached by Michael Cooper and the Detroit Shock were playing a game that began to get edgy and Laimbeer warned an official to start calling the game tighter. He was told to shut up. Don't you think that Bill Laimbeer knows when a fight is brewing? Yeah. of course you do.

The Sparks are having a good seson with Lisa Leslie back on court to complement and mentor Parker who is drawing big crowds around the country. The teams are both 2 time league champs and their styles reflect their tough coaches' attitudes and mindset formed back when they banged each other on the hardwood for the Pistons and the Lakers.

The one interesting element that sets this apart from the usual basketball dust up is that Rick Mahorn, hulking figure to this day, seemed to push Lisa Leslie away from the brawl and she tumbled backwards onto the floor. A teammate took offense to the team's leader being sent flying by a big guy and went at him and pounded her fist on his back. Mahorn looked around in shock (or Shock if you prefer) and wondered what the hell happened.

He was trying to keep Leslie from going back into the scrum and help end the fight. That wasn't what Leslie or her team thought at the time and apparently neither did the officals. 3 players, including Parker were ejected and so was Mahorn. As a guy who doesn't need to push a woman to show he's tough, it is pretty clear from watching the video this morning that he meant to help but was misunderstood.

David Stern will shake his head about this and then lick his chops. His commercials are true: women's basketball isn't a joke and the players aren't afraid of contact. And just to prove it the highest profile teams, stars and coaches went at it with 4.5 seconds left on the clock and the game hanging in the balance at 80-78. He couldn't buy this kind of publicity.



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