On the latest Locked on Women’s Basketball, host Jackie Powell discusses officiating in the WNBA. First, she explains the reasons for the latest complaints in officiating after there was a scuffle that broke out between Caitlin Clark’s Indiana Fever and Jacy Sheldon’s Connecticut Sun earlier this week.
She began by analyzing Liberty coach Sandy Brondello’s comments.
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“So she was talking about the fact that officials that are in the WNBA often get promoted to the NBA, and these are also officials that are maybe not paid a full salary when working for the WNBA,” Powell said. “And as a result, like many others working in this space, you have to take on other jobs if that means officiating the college game. And as Brondello said, that can be apples and oranges at times, and that leads to some of these inconsistencies in calls.”
Later she is joined by Lucas Kaplan, a New York-based basketball reporter who covers both the Liberty in the WNBA and the Nets in the NBA at NetDaily. The two examine how there are different types of narratives that surround WNBA players and officiating compared to their counterparts in the NBA.
“Things happen in both leagues, players go over the line. But in the NBA, I think you hear more of this reflected on the players themselves,” Kaplan said. “Whereas, even if there’s an officiating mistake or something people don’t agree with, whether a call or a punishment like a fine or flagrant or whatever, it’s not a referendum on what the league is doing to protect the players, whereas in the W I’ve often found that that is the case.”
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