Today’s WNBA Stars Are Very Much Like Yesterday’s NBA Legends

The stars of the WNBA will gather in Minneapolis on Saturday (3:30pm EST, ABC television) for the 2018 WNBA All-Star game. The actual game will feature the stars selected by Candace Parker facing the stars selected by Elena Delle Donne. Fans of the WNBA are quite familiar with both Parker and Delle Donne. But as Delle Donne recently told the Philadelphia Inquirer, she believes relatively few sports fans seem to know about her or the WNBA. Whether or not that is true one can debate. If you study the history of sports, though, it’s not hard to conclude that someday Delle Donne, Parker, and the other WNBA stars of today will be far better known. In fact, it seems possible that someday today’s WNBA stars will be as legendary as Julius Erving, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Elvin Hayes, Rick Barry, and Bob McAdoo.

Consider the year 1973. Forty-five years ago the NBA was less than thirty years old and it was facing competition from the ABA (which was less than ten years old). The NBA was not quite what it is today. The three-point shot did not exist in the NBA. In fact, the NBA had just begun following the lead of the ABA and started tracking such new statistics as steals, blocked shots, and turnovers (making it finally possible to calculate how many wins each player produces). Both the NBA and ABA had some fans, but no one would think professional basketball in 1973 has the following of Major League Baseball or the National Football League.

We can see this when we look at some attendance data. Today we think of Dr. J, Kareem, the Big E, Rick Barry, and Bob McAdoo as legends. But not many people came out to see these players play in 1973-74. Here was the average per-game attendance for the teams employing these players that season (and yes, the names of three of these teams have changed a bit).

• Julius “Dr. J.” Erving (New York Nets): 9,569
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Milwaukee Bucks): 9,819
• Elvin “The Big E” Hayes (Capital Bullets): 10,102
• Rick Barry (Golden State Warriors): 6,465
• Bob McAdoo (Buffalo Braves): 10,421

Except for Barry, these attendance numbers would have been thought of as good for the NBA and ABA in 1973-74. The NBA only averaged 8,479 fans per game in 1973-74.  And the ABA’s games only averaged 5,485 fans per contest. To put that in perspective, the Los Angeles Sparks attracted 11,350 fans per game last season while per game attendance for the Minnesota Lynx was 10,407 fans. Yes, more people are coming out today to see Candace Parker and Sylvia Fowles than came out to see Dr. J. and Kareem forty-five years ago.

Of course, today millions of basketball fans know Dr. J. and Kareem as NBA legends. Part of this is because the NBA eventually learned how to market its stars (and also benefitted from huge public subsidies and a large amount of free media coverage). But part of this is just a function of time. As time goes by the history of a sport gets written. And that history helps today’s fans understand what they are watching.

History provides a sports fan with context. In evaluating a player today, we tend to use history to make that evaluation. For example, many sports fans wonder if LeBron James is better than Michael Jordan. In a similar sense, players in the 1980s and 1990s were evaluated relative to players like Dr. J. and Kareem. And Dr. J. and Kareem were also evaluated relative to those players who played before them. This is a recurring theme in sports. Our evaluation of each generation of players is made in the context of the game’s history. And that suggests that when a league is young and it doesn’t have much history, part of what makes a sport interesting to fans is missing.

It’s not unreasonable to think that a similar story will unfold in the WNBA. Today, the history of the WNBA is relatively short. But that will not be true in the future. And we can imagine that fans will eventually compare future stars to Delle Donne, Parker, and Fowles. Yes, although relatively few sports fans may know today’s WNBA stars, in the future — as the WNBA grows — these same players will be legends.

And when that happens, people will argue about which of these legends was truly the best. How will that future argument be settled?

There is some debate among fans about whether or not you should evaluate a player by watching the player play or by looking at the player’s numbers. Although I very much like watching the players play (obviously), as an empirical economist I tend to think the statistics do a better job of determining which player is the best. But I am very sympathetic to those who think statistical analysis ruins much of what people love about sports.

Of course, even if you hate numbers the stats do tell you something if you didn’t watch. As noted, the numbers tracked in the box score can be translated into how many wins each player produced for their team. And if we believe the best players are those who produce the most wins, then the numbers can tell us — even if we never saw any players play — who is best.

To illustrate, here is the list of the twelve most productive — or best — players in the WNBA at the All-Star break.

1. Sylvia Fowles (Minnesota Lynx): 6.43 Wins Produced
2. Elizabeth Cambage (Dallas Wings): 5.40 Wins Produced
3. Courtney Vandersloot (Chicago Sky): 5.28 Wins Produced
4. Breanna Stewart (Seattle Storm): 5.24 Wins Produced
5. Diana Taurasi (Phoenix Mercury): 5.18 Wins Produced
6. Elena Delle Donne (Washington Mystics): 4.69 Wins Produced
7. Skylar Diggins-Smith (Dallas Wings): 4.56 Wins Produced
8. Sue Bird (Seattle Storm): 4.42 Wins Produced
9. Candace Parker (Los Angeles Sparks): 4.39 Wins Produced
10. DeWanna Bonner (Phoenix Mercury): 3.97 Wins Produced
11. Jewell Loyd (Seattle Storm): 3.89 Wins Produced
12. Chelsea Gray (Los Angeles Sparks): 3.61 Wins Produced

All of these players — except for Vandersloot — will be appearing in the 2018 WNBA All-Star Game (and there is an argument Vandersloot should be there). And again, most (if not all) of these players will probably someday be thought of as legends.

If we believe these numbers, the best players in Saturday’s All-Star game will be Fowles, Cambage, Stewart, Taurasi, and Delle Donne. Of course, these numbers are just from the current season. If we consider more data than just the current season than players like Maya Moore, Brittney Griner, and Sue Bird might rank among the best. And again, if you hate the data you can just watch and judge for yourself.

For fans of the aforementioned NBA legends, this approach is no longer possible. We can no longer watch the legends from 1973 on the court. Consequently, all we have are the numbers. As the following list reveals, those numbers tell us how many wins these players produced across an 82 game NBA season (84 games in the ABA) in 1973-74.

• Julius Erving: 22.0 Wins Produced
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 17.3 Wins Produced
• Elvin Hayes: 12.6 Wins Produced
• Bob McAdoo: 12.4 Wins Produced
• Rick Barry: 9.1 Wins Produced

Is this right? Was Dr. J. in the ABA really much better than Kareem in the NBA in 1973-74? Assuming the ABA was as good as the NBA (and it might not have been), that’s the story the numbers tell. And since you can’t go back and watch these players play, for many fans today (who did not watch basketball in 1973) those numbers are about all we have to settle the debate about which legends are best.

Today we don’t have to strictly rely on numbers for the WNBA. You can watch those players play and decide whether Fowles is truly better than Cambage and Stewart. Or whether Taurasi is still — at her age — better than Diggins-Smith and Loyd. Yes, the numbers tell a story. But part of being a fan is ignoring those numbers and deciding for yourself.

And of course, if you watch today you will have an advantage in the future. Or at least, in the future, you will be able to say something like: “I don’t care what you say about the players today, no one was ever better than Elena Delle Donne and Candace Parker!”