Turning Pro In Women’s Basketball Is Not A Zero-Sum Game

A retired basketball player once reminded me how fast glory used to fade in the days before the WNBA. The player’s college years ended on the best possible note: Her team cruised through the regular season and won a national championship on a buzzer-beater. She visited the White House to celebrate, had her photo taken with Bill and Hillary Clinton, and a couple hours later was on a flight from D.C. to Europe to begin her pro career. The team put her up in a crummy apartment across the street from a French jail. Just like that, the party was over.

It’s the oldest story in women’s basketball, and it’s new again. Postgrad anticlimax—the feeling that the buzz around the NCAA tournament fizzles away each year—has been the talk of the sport for a week. A New York Times story on the “WNBA’s talent conundrum” notes that women’s players often see their “opportunities peak at the Final Four.” A USA Today column warns the WNBA not to fumble the “transcendent moment” before it. At the press conference before last night’s WNBA draft, commissioner Cathy Engelbert was asked about the players who chose to return to school and use a fifth year of eligibility rather than go pro.

That question and those columns arose from a conversation I’ve found enlightening at times and muddled at others. Women’s basketball players have been candid in discussing the college vs. pro decision as they see it. College can mean more security and comfort; players are quick to point out that their college teams take charter flights, while WNBA teams fly commercial. (The league announced yesterday it will provide a small number of charter flights for back-to-backs and playoff games, but that’s still only a fraction.) And NIL deals can lower the opportunity cost of staying in school. You have doubtless heard that Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark bring in big bucks—pick whichever sketchy algorithm-generated “NIL valuation” you like.

The muddled part: I think different problems and different classes of players are getting lumped together, and I’m not so sure it spells doom or “conundrum” for the WNBA. The Times story ends with a now-viral quote from UCLA head coach Cori Close discussing her senior guard Charisma Osborne, who initially declared for the draft, but later chose to take a fifth year:

Close often consults her peers in the W.N.B.A. about the state of the league, and one coach was frank about what life could be like for the star U.C.L.A. guard Charisma Osborne, who declared for the draft this season, if she makes a roster.

“Does Charisma want to make more money and stay in college and get massages, fly charter, have everything paid for, have a nutritionist and have her own trainers that are paid for?” Close said, quoting the coach. “Or does she want to have none of those things and fly Southwest with us?”

It’s a shocking quote, but the story might overstate Osborne’s WNBA prospects; she was likely a second-rounder this year. Earlier in the story appears Iowa…