Media Goes Crazy for Brittney Griner's Slam Dunk, But Basketball Fans Spot an Immediate Problem
Is Brittney Griner still catching breaks?
The WNBA star and erstwhile Russian prisoner, who was returned to the United States in a swap that freed a notorious Russian arms dealer, was being celebrated this weekend for a slam dunk during the league’s All-Star Game on Saturday in Las Vegas.
But plenty of viewers who saw the video are raising plenty of doubts.
“BG is BACKKKK,” the WNBA official Twitter account roared. “Brittney Griner with the early slam on ABC!”
BG IS BACKKKK
Brittney Griner with the early slam on ABC! | @ATT #WNBAAllStar pic.twitter.com/2IFGgLMGPh
— WNBA (@WNBA) July 16, 2023
“SHOWTIME DUNK FOR BG!” ESPN declared.
SHOWTIME DUNK FOR BG! 🤩 #WNBAAllStar pic.twitter.com/YVUQE0yfDB
— ESPN (@espn) July 16, 2023
Sports Illustrated also hyped it on Twitter. (It’s an eternal wonder how bastions of sports like ESPN and Sports Illustrated have become so woke.)
As WNBA videos go, it’s certainly eye-catching enough — even if the announcer’s voice did sound a little strained to make it all sound super-duper exciting. The ritual bow by the fan in the background didn’t hurt the atmosphere either.
The problem, as any amateur basketball observer would think immediately, is, “Was that legal?”
Basketball players are generally required to dribble the ball while in motion. Taking steps without doing so is called “traveling.”
The governing regulation appears to be in the WNBA 2022 rulebook, Rule 10, section XIII:
“A player who gathers the ball while progressing may take (1) two steps in coming to a stop, passing or shooting the ball, or (2) if she has not yet dribbled, one step prior to releasing the ball.”
And in this case, it looked like the 6-foot-9 Phoenix Mercury center was doing almost as much traveling at the All-Star game as she ever did with cannabis oil on her way to a Russian prison cell.
Social media users let out the alarm:
I counted at least 4 steps
— Jamaal Abdul-Alim (@dcwriter360) July 16, 2023
Walking & Travelling All The Way Outa Russian Jail Cell…
— AG (@Easy_AG_NBA) July 16, 2023
If Michael Jordan took that many steps, his feet would clear the basket.
— Brian Doherty (@BDOH) July 17, 2023
I guess they don’t call traveling in the WNBA.
— AdamInHTownTX (Not a Biologist) (@AdamInHTownTX) July 17, 2023
Naturally, there were Griner defenders who maintained that she dribbled between taking the pass and going for the dunk.
That alleged dribble takes place about the 2-second mark of the WNBA video. Look closely at it. Again and again. It’s very difficult to see.
If the Women’s National Basketball Association were more popular, it would be a mystery worthy of the Muhammad Ali “phantom punch” that knocked down Sonny Liston in 1965 and kept Ali boxing’s heavyweight champion.
Unfortunately for the WNBA, it’s not more popular and is unlikely to ever be popular, so this dispute is likely to be limited to the Twitter world — where an infinitely larger number of viewers saw the video of the dunk than watched the WNBA All-Star Game itself — or knew or cared about its results.
Some Griner defenders slammed the critics as “haters.” Please. Pointing out what looks like a fairly obvious rules violation in a sport doesn’t qualify as “hate” — unless it’s hate of cheating.
But there’s no denying there are a good number of Americans who will leap to criticize Griner on just about any excuse, considering how she was one of the athletes who took a stand against the national anthem during the insanity of the 2020 riots over the death of drug-abusing counterfeiting suspect George Floyd in Minneapolis (she changed her tune after getting out of a Russian prison).
There are also quite a few who question — or even resent — Griner being free while the Biden administration left behind Marine veteran Paul Whalen, who remains in a Russian prison on an evidently trumped-up espionage charge.
The fact that the United States traded an arms dealer so evil that he’s nicknamed “the merchant of death” simply to placate President Joe Biden’s leftist base by freeing a lesbian woman who has the advantage of being black — all while leaving behind a former Marine to basically rot in a prison cell — is just one more mark against the Biden presidency.
And it’s going to be a mark Brittney Griner carries for the rest of her basketball career, if not her life.
She caught a big break having a pliable, senescent Joe Biden in the White House when she got herself in a jam.
She might have just caught another one when refs appeared to look the other way in favor of producing a highlight reel out of the WNBA’s All-Star Game.
Americans who respect the rules — whether in international affairs or on the WNBA basketball court — can be forgiven for not automatically applauding.
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