When asked if she was staying on at UT after last night's championship win, Candace Parker said "Why wouldn't I?". Most everyone is reading that with relief this morning, taking it to mean she's staying.
But she didn't really say she was staying, did she? She answered with a rhetorical question: Why wouldn't I?
Apparently Parker has until 10 AM this morning, a little over one hour from now as I type this, to decide. Maybe she's waiting for an answer to her rhetorical question.
She could go to the WNBA, which wouldn't pay much but endorsements could be lucrative. Or, according to ESPN sportscasters last night, she could go to Europe and earn more than $1 million in salary and endorsements. Or maybe both.
She also said "This is where I want to be." I recall the Orlando Magic's Shaquille O'Neal saying the same thing days before he engineered a trade to the Lakers.
I'm no expert on all this, but the tall, smart, talented, and attractive lady hasn't sung yet, until as of 10 AM today. Hopefully she will decide to stay on and go for a repeat in 2008.
UPDATE: Phoenix first draft pick: Lindsey Harding. Candace Parker is not in the lineup. No word from the Russian draft...
UPDATE: Sidney Spencer goes to the Los Angeles Sparks late in the 2nd Round at 25.
I thought during the game there was a discussion under the WNBA's league rules that because she hadn't graduated by X date, she wasn't eligible for the WNBA draft.
Submitted by Bbeanster on Wed, 2007/04/04 - 9:45am.
that she is not leaving UT, and that she is sick of being badgered about it.
She was as gracious as one could expect a 20-year-old to be about anwsering the same stupid question over and over and over again by talking heads who are too damn lazy to do any homework before they open their idiotic pieholes, but she made it clear that she' like for them to STFU about this topic.
I follow this team closely (write about it some), and there was never, ever any doubt that she was going to return next season. Hell, they interviewed her mother, Sara, last night on ESPN2, and Sara said she has not had one word of conversation with Candace about her leaving UT this year -- but still, they yammered on.
And by the way, Candace herself said she is not on track for graduation in December, so there's really no question.
Strange how the vaginally-capable basketball players' season (i.e., WNBA) occurs over the summer yet the penile-oriented players' season (i.e., NBA) occurs over the winter and spring and early summer. Maybe that explains the difference? Nah, must be sexism.
Submitted by talidapali on Wed, 2007/04/04 - 4:42pm.
I don't really follow basketball, I for one would be happy to pay a higher wheel tax to fund the building of an arena for a WNBA team here in Knoxville. It's about damn time that women got the recognition for excellence that they deserve. I would rather have an arena for a women's pro-basketball team here than another stupid and probably wasted space industrial park in east Knox county.
Submitted by Mark Siegel on Thu, 2007/04/05 - 7:15am.
I have been a big Lady Vols and college women's basketball fan forever, and I would like to like the WNBA, but for some reason I don't. I am not sure it would be successful here.
I could be wrong. There was an exhibition here once with Chamique Holdsclaw's Washington team and the Houston Comets, and that was a lot of fun.
There was also a semi-pro team at Maryville College a few years back that did OK, but I suspect that filling the Maryville College gym and having a WNBA team are two different things.
Submitted by Andy Axel on Wed, 2007/04/04 - 8:57am.
She also said "This is where I want to be." I recall the Orlando Magic's Shaquille O'Neal saying the same thing days before he engineered a trade to the Lakers.
As with Roy Williams saying, "I don't give a s*** about North Carolina" before fleeing for Chapel Hill a couple of weeks later.
____________________________
People getting rich. Some people saying "Markets!" More death. Neil Young. Death.
Submitted by Mark Siegel on Wed, 2007/04/04 - 9:09am.
and she is.
The whole issue was initially raised by several Connecticut alumni, who wished she might leave, but had absolutely no basis to think she might. When someone finally asked her, she said she was staying at UT.
ESPN's continuing to try to make it an issue, IMO, was completely disrespectful to Candace. Her response of "Why wouldn't I want to keep wearing orange?" was in frustration to the fact that she has said clearly she was staying, but certain people wouldn't let it go.
She is very close to her family, and her mother said last night that they had never even discussed the possibility of her going pro.
Candace has even said that the factual basis on which some conjecture she is eligible to go to the WNBA is incorrect. To be eligible, she would need to graduate by December. She has said she intends to graduate next May.
She's not leaving.
The real issue should be -- will she stay for her senior season the year after next?
The whole issue was initially raised by several Connecticut alumni, who wished she might leave, but had absolutely no basis to think she might. When someone finally asked her, she said she was staying at UT.
Ding. Ding. Ding. The newspapers in Connecticut spend as much copy bitching about UT as they do actually covering their own basketball team. My wife's cousin is a huge UCONN women's bball fan and she repeats the classic anti-Summitt bullshit: "bull dyke," "dominatrix," and "cuckolder." I am so sorry that their coach has to beat on his players and coaches in public and that they need to have something to defect away from that psychopath. No way would I send one of my daughters to UCONN. As much as I rip on UT's administration, if by some chance, Summitt were still coaching in 12 years, one of my daugthers' was a great player and she came calling to recruit, you are damn straigh I give my OK.
True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler
Submitted by Andy Axel on Wed, 2007/04/04 - 10:22am.
This discussion is DOA -- unless you want to be calling CP3's mamma and Pat Summitt liars.
Unclench, please. No one's calling anyone a liar.
All I'm saying is that it isn't unheard of in the sport of basketball for a featured player or beloved coach to say one thing and then surprise everyone by doing another.
For the sake of the LV's, I hope Parker stays. But $1,000,000 starting pay in the Russian leagues has got to be a compelling draw for any young player and their respective families. You have to honor that.
And I note that it's after 11:00 EDT and no formal announcement. I'm certain that there is or has been some 11th hour angling going on here on the part of professional clubs from all over the globe.
____________________________
People getting rich. Some people saying "Markets!" More death. Neil Young. Death.
Submitted by Mark Siegel on Wed, 2007/04/04 - 11:00am.
1. I ain't no expert, but I don't think there's any $1,000,000 starting pay in Russia. The $1,000,000 figure is some ESPN fuzzy math to try to keep a non-issue alive. What I have seen elsewhere is that with a combination of WNBA, foreign play, and endorsements, she could maybe get up around $650,000.
2. It's one thing to get $3 or 4 million salary (plus endorsements) and be a superstar on national TV all the time, living large with your posse, etc. It's another thing to leave for $45,000 or so WNBA salary to play in a summer league, with the hope that you might make a few hundred thousand more by going off by yourself to play in relative obscurity in Russia.
3. I strongly suspect Candace is more interested in playing for the U.S. Olympic Team than playing in Russia.
4. I'm sort of tired of people refusing to believe sports figures who repeatedly say something straight out. It's disrespectful. It IS calling them a liar. As you point out, some of them are liars. Take Nick Saban, for example. No, I'm serious, take him, please.
They're doing the same thing with Bruce Pearl. He has said repeatedly that he's happy and grateful to be at Tennessee. He coached at Iowa, and everyone on his staff has strong connections to Iowa. Iowa called him, and he took the call out of courtesy and told them he was staying at Tennessee. And the immediate next rumor is that he just turned down Iowa because he wants the Kentucky job.
I don't think honorable people should be treated like liars just because some other people are liars.
Submitted by Andy Axel on Wed, 2007/04/04 - 11:08am.
I'm sort of tired of people refusing to believe sports figures who repeatedly say something straight out. It's disrespectful. It is calling them a liar.
Nope. It's pragmatic skepticism. Sports is big business. An injury can turn off the tap to the flow of dollars instantly. Alternative offers are a factor.
Example: As a Jayhawks fan, I got burned by believing Roy Williams. He said he didn't give a shit about North Carolina. Then he's leaving Lawrence without so much as a by-your-leave after their drubbing in the F4 a few years ago.
That doesn't make him a liar, I suppose. It does make him a jerk in my eyes from the perspective of being a Jayhawks fan. However, given the money involved and his history with the program and the personal pleas from Coach Smith, I can see why his words didn't match his deed.
But the Jayhawks have also benefitted from this sort of word-deed mismatch. UNC had Danny Manning fitted for his Tarheels uniform before Manning signed his LOI with Larry Brown. Many more stories like this exist in sports lore.
I suspect Parker will stay, but she's a great player, and great players will have this sort of ungrounded speculation and media love-hate throughout her career. For good or for ill, this is all part of the Big Time.
____________________________
People getting rich. Some people saying "Markets!" More death. Neil Young. Death.
Submitted by Bbeanster on Wed, 2007/04/04 - 1:33pm.
Anybody who was really interested in this stuff knows that the first round of the WNBA draft was on the Deuce at 1 p.m.
All the top candidates were there, decked out in church clothes.
None of whom was Candace Parker, who is on her way back to Knoxville with the trophy.
So, as Ivory Latta said to Shannon Bobbitt Sunday night:
"SHUT UP!!!"
Excuse me. I posted the update above re. ESPN2 and Phoenix's first pick at about 1:15 or whenever it was, two minutes after the pick, noting that Candace Parker was not there. And I don't know Jack Shit about any of this.
Submitted by Knoxquerious on Thu, 2007/04/05 - 7:20am.
A lot of folks said the Titans couldn't survive in Big Orange country, but they look like they are doing fine. I am not sure the same thing could be said for a WNBA team here though. It is hard enough to find more than a handful of people at the Women's Basketball HOF.
Submitted by Older and Wiser (not verified) on Wed, 2008/04/09 - 5:51pm.
Hate to bring this up, but in the world of lucrative endorsements, having the most gorgeous face in her sport won't hurt Candace one bit. Look for her on the cover of Vogue and other fashion magazines, not just sports publications. Don't be surprised if her lifetime off-court earnings end up rivaling Anna Kournokova.
Submitted by RayCapps on Thu, 2008/04/10 - 3:26pm.
Nah, to get those kinds of deals she'd have to play up the sex kitten angle too much. She seems like too much of a team player and to have too much pride in her achievements as an athlete to sell out like that. Maria Sharapova might be a little more like it. Like Sharapova, she has the necessary looks to be successful in the endorsement game, but wouldn't wear the outfits or be shown in the types of poses that got Kournikova a lot of her ink.
Besides, at nearly 6'5", beautiful as she is, "sex kitten" becomes a rather tough card to play. Sharapova, at nearly 6'3", would have the same issue. You look at them and see beautiful female athletes. You look at Kournikova and you see Britney Spears with a tennis racket. Different type of beauty, different types and number of endorsment deals.
We're talking Madison Avenue here, so I presume everyone reading this understands my comments and those I'm responding to were both made within the context of today's reality, not what ought to be in terms of how male and female atheletes are perceived and portrayed in advertising.
I believe this was done at the time of her 100 most beautiful "People" shoot--
Every 21 year old wants to look cute,6-5' team players and everybody.
She's going to make a ton of money -- It's my understanding she's got LeBron's original agent, and he's going to pass up the NBA draft guys to concentrate on Candace -- that's how marketable she is. It's unheard of.
Strange...Candace Parker gets less that 12 hours after the championship to decide her future at UT and if you have a penis you have until April 29th.
I thought during the game there was a discussion under the WNBA's league rules that because she hadn't graduated by X date, she wasn't eligible for the WNBA draft.
I think the rule is that she's eligible as long as she can show she is on track to graduate by December, which she says she is.
that she is not leaving UT, and that she is sick of being badgered about it.
She was as gracious as one could expect a 20-year-old to be about anwsering the same stupid question over and over and over again by talking heads who are too damn lazy to do any homework before they open their idiotic pieholes, but she made it clear that she' like for them to STFU about this topic.
I follow this team closely (write about it some), and there was never, ever any doubt that she was going to return next season. Hell, they interviewed her mother, Sara, last night on ESPN2, and Sara said she has not had one word of conversation with Candace about her leaving UT this year -- but still, they yammered on.
And by the way, Candace herself said she is not on track for graduation in December, so there's really no question.
Strange how the vaginally-capable basketball players' season (i.e., WNBA) occurs over the summer yet the penile-oriented players' season (i.e., NBA) occurs over the winter and spring and early summer. Maybe that explains the difference? Nah, must be sexism.
Link...
What's really strange is that the top WNBA draft pick will sign for a max $43K in salary. The top NBA pick gets nearly 100 times that much.
NBA is pretty great basketball, but I'm not sure it is 100 times better than the game last night.
The WNBA season is set up to use the arenas during the NBA off-season. This league is still in its infancy.
I don't really follow basketball, I for one would be happy to pay a higher wheel tax to fund the building of an arena for a WNBA team here in Knoxville. It's about damn time that women got the recognition for excellence that they deserve. I would rather have an arena for a women's pro-basketball team here than another stupid and probably wasted space industrial park in east Knox county.
_________________________________________________________
"You can't fix stupid..." ~ Ron White"
"I never said I wasn't a brat..." ~ Talidapali
I have been a big Lady Vols and college women's basketball fan forever, and I would like to like the WNBA, but for some reason I don't. I am not sure it would be successful here.
I could be wrong. There was an exhibition here once with Chamique Holdsclaw's Washington team and the Houston Comets, and that was a lot of fun.
There was also a semi-pro team at Maryville College a few years back that did OK, but I suspect that filling the Maryville College gym and having a WNBA team are two different things.
As with Roy Williams saying, "I don't give a s*** about North Carolina" before fleeing for Chapel Hill a couple of weeks later.
____________________________
People getting rich. Some people saying "Markets!" More death. Neil Young. Death.
and she is.
The whole issue was initially raised by several Connecticut alumni, who wished she might leave, but had absolutely no basis to think she might. When someone finally asked her, she said she was staying at UT.
ESPN's continuing to try to make it an issue, IMO, was completely disrespectful to Candace. Her response of "Why wouldn't I want to keep wearing orange?" was in frustration to the fact that she has said clearly she was staying, but certain people wouldn't let it go.
She is very close to her family, and her mother said last night that they had never even discussed the possibility of her going pro.
Candace has even said that the factual basis on which some conjecture she is eligible to go to the WNBA is incorrect. To be eligible, she would need to graduate by December. She has said she intends to graduate next May.
She's not leaving.
The real issue should be -- will she stay for her senior season the year after next?
The whole issue was initially raised by several Connecticut alumni, who wished she might leave, but had absolutely no basis to think she might. When someone finally asked her, she said she was staying at UT.
Ding. Ding. Ding. The newspapers in Connecticut spend as much copy bitching about UT as they do actually covering their own basketball team. My wife's cousin is a huge UCONN women's bball fan and she repeats the classic anti-Summitt bullshit: "bull dyke," "dominatrix," and "cuckolder." I am so sorry that their coach has to beat on his players and coaches in public and that they need to have something to defect away from that psychopath. No way would I send one of my daughters to UCONN. As much as I rip on UT's administration, if by some chance, Summitt were still coaching in 12 years, one of my daugthers' was a great player and she came calling to recruit, you are damn straigh I give my OK.
True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler
Unless you count the Euro leagues or Russian leagues, which have no such requirement. 26 million rubles is still a lot of jack in US dollars.
____________________________
People getting rich. Some people saying "Markets!" More death. Neil Young. Death.
Her mamma says she's not leaving. Pat Summitt says she's not leaving.
This discussion is DOA -- unless you want to be calling CP3's mamma and Pat Summitt liars.
Unclench, please. No one's calling anyone a liar.
All I'm saying is that it isn't unheard of in the sport of basketball for a featured player or beloved coach to say one thing and then surprise everyone by doing another.
For the sake of the LV's, I hope Parker stays. But $1,000,000 starting pay in the Russian leagues has got to be a compelling draw for any young player and their respective families. You have to honor that.
And I note that it's after 11:00 EDT and no formal announcement. I'm certain that there is or has been some 11th hour angling going on here on the part of professional clubs from all over the globe.
____________________________
People getting rich. Some people saying "Markets!" More death. Neil Young. Death.
1. I ain't no expert, but I don't think there's any $1,000,000 starting pay in Russia. The $1,000,000 figure is some ESPN fuzzy math to try to keep a non-issue alive. What I have seen elsewhere is that with a combination of WNBA, foreign play, and endorsements, she could maybe get up around $650,000.
2. It's one thing to get $3 or 4 million salary (plus endorsements) and be a superstar on national TV all the time, living large with your posse, etc. It's another thing to leave for $45,000 or so WNBA salary to play in a summer league, with the hope that you might make a few hundred thousand more by going off by yourself to play in relative obscurity in Russia.
3. I strongly suspect Candace is more interested in playing for the U.S. Olympic Team than playing in Russia.
4. I'm sort of tired of people refusing to believe sports figures who repeatedly say something straight out. It's disrespectful. It IS calling them a liar. As you point out, some of them are liars. Take Nick Saban, for example. No, I'm serious, take him, please.
They're doing the same thing with Bruce Pearl. He has said repeatedly that he's happy and grateful to be at Tennessee. He coached at Iowa, and everyone on his staff has strong connections to Iowa. Iowa called him, and he took the call out of courtesy and told them he was staying at Tennessee. And the immediate next rumor is that he just turned down Iowa because he wants the Kentucky job.
I don't think honorable people should be treated like liars just because some other people are liars.
Nope. It's pragmatic skepticism. Sports is big business. An injury can turn off the tap to the flow of dollars instantly. Alternative offers are a factor.
Example: As a Jayhawks fan, I got burned by believing Roy Williams. He said he didn't give a shit about North Carolina. Then he's leaving Lawrence without so much as a by-your-leave after their drubbing in the F4 a few years ago.
That doesn't make him a liar, I suppose. It does make him a jerk in my eyes from the perspective of being a Jayhawks fan. However, given the money involved and his history with the program and the personal pleas from Coach Smith, I can see why his words didn't match his deed.
But the Jayhawks have also benefitted from this sort of word-deed mismatch. UNC had Danny Manning fitted for his Tarheels uniform before Manning signed his LOI with Larry Brown. Many more stories like this exist in sports lore.
I suspect Parker will stay, but she's a great player, and great players will have this sort of ungrounded speculation and media love-hate throughout her career. For good or for ill, this is all part of the Big Time.
____________________________
People getting rich. Some people saying "Markets!" More death. Neil Young. Death.
I can't trust any beloved UT athlete's words after Heath Shuler. :(
Anybody who was really interested in this stuff knows that the first round of the WNBA draft was on the Deuce at 1 p.m.
All the top candidates were there, decked out in church clothes.
None of whom was Candace Parker, who is on her way back to Knoxville with the trophy.
So, as Ivory Latta said to Shannon Bobbitt Sunday night:
"SHUT UP!!!"
Excuse me. I posted the update above re. ESPN2 and Phoenix's first pick at about 1:15 or whenever it was, two minutes after the pick, noting that Candace Parker was not there. And I don't know Jack Shit about any of this.
NUKE: I love winning, Crash, you hear me? I love It. Teach me everything.
CRASH: It's time you started working on your interviews.
NUKE: What do I gotta do?
CRASH: Learn your cliches. Study them. Know them. They're your friends. Write this down:
"We gotta play 'em one day at a time."
NUKE: Boring.
CRASH: Of course. That's the point.
"I'm just happy to be here and hope I can help the ballclub."
NUKE: Jesus.
CRASH: Write! Write!
"I just wanna give it my best shot and, good Lord willing, things'll work out."
NUKE: "...good Lord willing, things'll work out."
CRASH: Yep.
____________________________
People getting rich. Some people saying "Markets!" More death. Neil Young. Death.
"Some days you win, some days you lose, and some days it rains."
(Note the update re. Spencer.)
A lot of folks said the Titans couldn't survive in Big Orange country, but they look like they are doing fine. I am not sure the same thing could be said for a WNBA team here though. It is hard enough to find more than a handful of people at the Women's Basketball HOF.
But if it meant a new civic center...
Hate to bring this up, but in the world of lucrative endorsements, having the most gorgeous face in her sport won't hurt Candace one bit. Look for her on the cover of Vogue and other fashion magazines, not just sports publications. Don't be surprised if her lifetime off-court earnings end up rivaling Anna Kournokova.
Nah, to get those kinds of deals she'd have to play up the sex kitten angle too much. She seems like too much of a team player and to have too much pride in her achievements as an athlete to sell out like that. Maria Sharapova might be a little more like it. Like Sharapova, she has the necessary looks to be successful in the endorsement game, but wouldn't wear the outfits or be shown in the types of poses that got Kournikova a lot of her ink.
Besides, at nearly 6'5", beautiful as she is, "sex kitten" becomes a rather tough card to play. Sharapova, at nearly 6'3", would have the same issue. You look at them and see beautiful female athletes. You look at Kournikova and you see Britney Spears with a tennis racket. Different type of beauty, different types and number of endorsment deals.
We're talking Madison Avenue here, so I presume everyone reading this understands my comments and those I'm responding to were both made within the context of today's reality, not what ought to be in terms of how male and female atheletes are perceived and portrayed in advertising.
Uh, Ray,
evidently you missed the video I posted in the "congrats Lady Vols" thread:
Link...
I believe this was done at the time of her 100 most beautiful "People" shoot--
Every 21 year old wants to look cute,6-5' team players and everybody.
She's going to make a ton of money -- It's my understanding she's got LeBron's original agent, and he's going to pass up the NBA draft guys to concentrate on Candace -- that's how marketable she is. It's unheard of.
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