Something amazing is going to happen on Thursday. Either the Golden State Valkyries will win a WNBA championship in just their second year of existence, or the Atlanta Dream will force the first Game 7 in league history.
This should be a moment for the WNBA to savor.
Instead, it's already been tainted — or even worse.
It is, at best, unfortunate that Game 6 of the WNBA Finals between the Valkyries and Dream will tip off at 12:30 p.m. local time in Atlanta on Thursday — 9:30 a.m. in San Francisco, Golden State's home. Many kids will be in school. Many adults will be at work. It's not ideal.
The NBA, the WNBA and the teams involved all spent days trying to find a better way. There evidently wasn't one.
“I’d like to see it be a national holiday for all WNBA championship games,” Atlanta coach Karl Smesko said. “I hope everybody gets to see it, somehow. I know for some people, it's not realistic. They have jobs. They won't be able to make it. I'm disappointed for that, but I'm really hopeful that as many people can see the game as possible.”
At issue: Atlanta and Cleveland play an NBA game at State Farm Arena on Thursday night. The Dream want to play there to accommodate a bigger crowd, after playing their home games for most of the season in a 3,500-seat facility. It would have required moving the Hawks-Cavaliers game to another day (which almost certainly would have sparked a domino effect of other games needing to be moved) or changing the WNBA Finals schedule (which wouldn't have been ideal, either).
Nothing was simple:
— Just move Game 6 to Friday? USA Network had other broadcast responsibilities such as the Breeders' Cup and WWE that night, and then there also would have been an issue about what to do with a Game 7, if necessary, on Saturday.
— Push the Hawks-Cavs game to another day? That could lead to one of those teams playing another back-to-back or even a stretch of four games in five nights, which neither would want. There have been many examples of the NBA changing the date of a game because of severe weather or other issues — those are rarely ideal, and certainly not voluntary.
— Let the Hawks and Cavs play the matinee game Thursday? Both have home games starting at 7 p.m. Wednesday. Cleveland would play that game, then fly to Atlanta, get to its hotel after midnight and have to play a game no more than 12 hours later, which wouldn't be allowed by current NBA rules.
— Play on Atlanta's “usual” home court on Thursday night? It would have been a great atmosphere, sure, but nobody wanted the tiny crowd. In the future, State Farm will be the full-time home of the Dream, which means potential WNBA Finals dates won't be in conflict with Hawks games. (Such is already the case with other arenas that play host to both WNBA and NBA teams.)
So, the solution: The Cavs-Hawks game got moved back to 8 p.m., and Game 6 of the WNBA Finals precedes it in the same arena at 12:30.
“It’s better than, you know, having it at the YMCA that night in front of 75 people," Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “They're doing what they've got to do.”
The Valkyries, for their part, have some ideas on how fans can manage the early start time.
“Call in sick,” guard Veronica Burton said. “I recommend it.”
Added forward Kiah Stokes: “Don’t y’all know how to fake a cough?”
They're handling it with a sense of humor. So, too, is Smesko, with his tongue-in-cheek plea for a national holiday to be declared.
It's going to be either the last game, or the next-to-last game, in a season that the WNBA can point to as a sign of continued growth. There were more games than ever, which meant more people showed up than ever — around 3.8 million this season and counting, including playoffs. But it wasn't just a record total: The average number of fans per game will end up around 11,500, another record and up about 4.5% over last year.
Las Vegas star A'ja Wilson won her record fifth MVP award. The league set records for points and 3-pointers per game. A new star was born, with Minnesota's Olivia Miles the unanimous pick as rookie of the year. Atlanta's Angel Reese was defensive player of the year, cementing her status as someone who absolutely moves the WNBA needle. In Indiana, Kelsey Mitchell and Caitlin Clark scored more points than any WNBA backcourt ever in a season.
And the playoffs were unpredictable, plus will end with a new champion.
Those should be the things to remember when this season ends — not a 12:30 p.m. start time. And while it makes sense to ask if a weekday afternoon game is fair to the teams or the league, it would be even more unfair to let the angst about it overshadow the game itself.
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