So, I'm going to go ahead and post this here, not really expecting anyone to actually read it. But, I don't really have anywhere else to post it*, so here goes:
I was reading a discussion about the upcoming WNBA Finals earlier today, and someone made the statement that Atlanta's Angel McCoughtry is a better player than Minnesota's Maya Moore. This, not surprisingly, led to a discussion of who, in fact, is the better player. The discussion then further descended into a misguided debate on what defines a superstar, and who qualifies, relative to the WNBA. The most vocal person on one side was trying to make the case that McCoughtry is a superstar, based on her raw numbers, and that it's not possible for a player like Moore to be a superstar, on the basis of playing on a team where she has so much talent around her. Whereas the most vocal person on the other side seemed to be making the argument that post-season accomplishments should be the biggest determining factor in whether or not a player is a superstar.
I happen to think that they're both wrong.
First of All™, relative to the superstar argument in sports, it really has less to do with either raw numbers or postseason accolades, and more to do with how big your footprint is outside of your sport. Tamika Catchings, when her career is over and done with, may well be the greatest player in the history of the WNBA (hell, as of today, she's a 7-time All-Star, 11-time All-WNBA, 9-time First Team All-Defense, 5-time DPOY, 1-time MVP, 1-time Finals MVP, the all-time steals leader [surpassing Sacramento's Ticha Penicheiro a couple of years back], and the only player in league history ranked in the Top Ten in scoring, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks), but she's not a superstar. In fact, if you could find ten non-WNBA fans who've ever heard of her, I'd be astonished. McCoughtry is second among active players in career scoring average, she's led the league in scoring two years in a row now, and last season became the first player since Sheryl Swoopes to lead the league in scoring and steals in the same season. She's not a superstar, either; she's literally got no cache outside of WNBA fandom.
There are only about eight true superstars in the WNBA today: Brittany Griner, Elena Delle Donne, Skylar Diggins, Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, Becky Hammon, Candace Parker and Maya Moore. There are going to be some WNBA fans who, if they ever actually read this, will cringe at some of those names, but the fact of the matter is that those are the only players whose recognition transcend their sport. Now, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't bet anything I'd lament losing on any of these young women being recognized by sight, with the exception of Griner... but, at least if Taurasi were walking down the street, wearing a shirt that read, "I'm Diana Taurasi" on it, I'd bet lunch that at least one in twenty non-WNBA fans would recognize the name. The same doesn't hold true for Catchings, or McCoughtry, or Lindsay Whelan, or Penny Taylor, or Seimone Augustus, or Cappie Pondexter, or Tina Charles, or any host of other supremely talented women in the WNBA.
Now, as far as the discussion between McCoughtry and Moore goes, I tend to side with McCoughtry. Granted, the evidence certainly seems to indicate that Moore is a more "efficient" player than McCoughtry, but the evidence also seems to indicate that Moore plays with a much better supporting cast than McCoughtry. Maybe I'm being unfair to Miss Moore, but I don't actually believe that, if the two of them swapped teams, that she would still continue to shoot 51 percent. I don't actually believe that she would continue to have an assist-to-turnover ratio of just under 2:1.
I was looking at their respective careers, amateur and pro, and I can't help but notice how incredibly fortunate Moore has been her whole life: she won three high school state championships, as well as a high school national championship, playing for Collins Hill, but during that same stretch of time, she also played with four other girls who ended up playing in Division I. Do you know how many girls who ended up playing in Division I that McCoughtry played with in any one year during her four at St. Francis? I'll give you a hint: it was less than four. McCoughtry played exactly one year with a stacked lineup, during her one year at The Patterson School, while she was trying to earn Division I eligibility and, guess what? She won a prep national championship, too.
Moore won two NCAA National Championships in her four years at Connecticut, but she also never played a single season there with fewer than four other WNBA players. McCoughtry, by comparison, didn't reach the Final Four until her senior year at Louisville, and lost in the final game to one of those two UConn teams. The year that Connecticut beat Louisville, Moore played on a team with four other WNBA players. How many WNBA players, besides McCoughtry, do you think were on that Louisville team? I'll give you a hint: it was way less than four. I'd be interested in seeing how many trips to the Final Four Moore would have made if she'd played on a team in college whose second-best player was Candyce Bingham?
McCoughtry has, by and large, been an inefficient chucker in her WNBA career. It is noteworthy, I think, that during her rookie season, the one season in her pro career where she wasn't expected to carry the team offensively (coincidentally, also the only season in her career where she played with another star player), she shot just under 48 percent, which is way above her career .428 average. She was drafted by an expansion team and, in two years, they went from the worst record in the history of the league, to the Finals.; they are about to make their third trip to the Finals in four years. Moore was drafted by a team that already had a Number One overall pick, and four players who had already been to the Finals on different teams (three of which had won championships). She won a championship her first season, and is about to make her third straight trip to the Finals. Now, I'm not going to lie and say that Moore had nothing to do with that championship, but I'd like to see her get to the Finals on a team where the starting point guard is Shalee Lehning, and not Lindsay Whelan, and the second-best player on the team is Erika deSouza, and not, well... Maya Moore.
I think it's also worth noting that, the one occasion that she played with other players on her level (Team USA), she led the team in field goal percentage and steals, and was second on the team in scoring, despite not starting a single game, so my inclination is to believe that McCoughtry's lack of efficiency has more to do with the demands placed on her by her club team.
Let's suppose, for argument's sake, that Atlanta upsets Minnesota in the Finals, and then Griner and Delle Done end up dominating the league for the next decade, and Maya Moore never wins another championship. If Moore and McCoughtry end up with the same number of championships, who's going to be thought of as the better player? I may be biased, but I lean towards the latter.
Oh, and just so that I'm keeping in with the spirit of the board, MONARCHS IN 2015
*- (there is one message board that is pretty much the go-to site for WNBA discussion, but I decline to register there, on account of I don't feel like my posting style is compatible with their board culture; I might last a whole week before I got myself banned)