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NBA and WNBA: It's different when they are your babies
Published: 4/28/2010 7:04 PM
Last Modified: 4/28/2010 7:04 PM

Let’s jump in a time machine and go back to, say, 10 years ago.

A lot of people on both ends of the turnpike were NBA bashers.

Ask about the league and you got replies like this:

The season is too long.

The players don’t play hard all the time.

No one plays defense.

The refs won’t call traveling.

Overpaid kids are playing one-on-one instead of playing team basketball.

Now Oklahoma City is nuts about the NBA and, thanks to the Thunder being more than a sound effect, more Tulsans are jumping on the bandwagon every day. If the Thunder plays games in June, will anyone in Oklahoma City complain that the season is too long? No.

What happened?

This happened: You got a team. The NBA became your baby instead of someone else’s. It’s easy to say the baby is ugly when it’s someone else’s. But your perspective changes when you get your own.

Whether I’m in the minority or not, I believe the WNBA will make a go of it in Tulsa because the Shock gals are going to be your babies, never mind that players are 20- or 30-some years removed from the crib.

And the first time some harpy (exaggerating, of course) from another team elbows one of your babies in the face, well, let’s see what happens. I bet you become a protective parent and -- yes, I'm saying it -- a WNBA fan.



Reader Comments 1 Total
dcood (3 years ago)
Disagree: if the Thunder fulfilled any or all of the stereotypes you accurately pointed out, the savvy sports fans in Oklahoma wouldnt have jumped on. The Thunder play hard, unselfishly and dont act like jerks to the public... and they win. Thats the reason for the fever pitch of support.
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Tulsa World sports writer Jimmie Tramel is a former class president at Locust Grove High School. He graduated magna cum laude from Northeastern State University with a journalism degree and, while attending college, was sports editor of the Pryor Daily Times. He joined the Tulsa World on Oct. 17, 1989, the same day an earthquake struck the World Series. He is the OSU basketball beat writer and a columnist and feature writer during football season. In 2007, he wrote a book about Oklahoma State football with former Cowboy coach Pat Jones.

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