Shaq mansplains to Candace Parker - a WNBA star who can dunk - that her league should lower the baskets for dunks
- Shaq suggested that lowering the rim to allow players to dunk could increase interest in the WNBA.
- He gave the unsolicited advice to Candace Parker, a two-time WNBA MVP who can dunk on 10-foot hoops.
- Shaq's argument is flawed for many reasons, most notably because it's demeaning to women's players.
Shaq thought he had a great idea to help elevate the women's game.
He thought wrong.
During Tuesday night's rendition of "NBA on TNT," NBA Hall of Famer Shaquille O'Neal mansplained to two-time WNBA MVP Candace Parker that the perfect way to make the NBA and the WNBA "equal" would be to "lower the rim so y'all can dunk like we dunk."
"That'll give y'all more 'oomph' than you already have," Shaq insisted.
Parker quickly shut down the 7-foot-1, 324-pound commentator's misguided theory, responding with a curt "no" as Shaq continued.
There are numerous reasons why the notion that the women's side of the game should adapt to be more like the men's is flawed, the most compelling of which is that women's basketball players simply find the suggestion demeaning. In 2018, Nneka Ogwumike - a superstar in her own right and the president of the Women's National Basketball Players Association - brilliantly explained why that line of inquiry is "probably one of the most offensive questions you can ask a WNBA player."
"It's not logical to ask us to do that," she said. "We're constantly being compared to men. We have people excelling at a 10-foot rim. And now, you want us to lower the rim so we can continuously be compared, only to still be criticized. Because now, you have someone like me who has done what she's done - now I have to relearn the game to appease people who don't want to watch it for what it is."
Both Ogwumike and Parker are among the WNBA players who have excelled on a regulation basketball hoop. In fact, the latter of the two - whom Shaq was addressing directly in the first place - already can dunk on a 10-foot basket.
Parker is one of a handful of WNBA players who have thrown down dunks since the league began 25 years ago. The six-time first-team All-WNBA selection and reigning Defensive Player of the Year first dunked in a Los Angeles Sparks game in 2008 - her historic rookie campaign in which she became the only player to win Rookie of the Year and league MVP in the same season. Here's the highlight:
So forgive the newly minted Chicago Sky star for refusing to engage in mindless debate with Shaq. She'll let her game do the talking instead.