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Nneka and the draft - yvonne - 04-12-2012

Not much news here. She will probably be the No. 1 pick and will go to the LA Sparks. She hopes to be rookie of the year. (But what rookie doesn't?)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/04/11/SP8G1O26OT.DTL

Re: Nneka and the draft - needle - 04-12-2012

Maybe she'll make six figures. I kind of doubt it, though.

Quote:LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Derrick Rose all make millions. Tamika Catchings, Candace Parker and Diana Taurasi do not, at least not in the WNBA.

To get a sense of the pay difference between the two leagues, the WNBA salary cap for 2012 is $878,000 per team and the maximum salary for a player is $105,000. The Atlanta Hawks' Joe Johnson will make more than $215,000 a game in this lockout-shortened season.

http://espn.go.com/espnw/more-sports/7538075/wnba-players-cash-overseas

Re: Nneka and the draft - Roberton3 - 04-12-2012

(04-12-2012, 10:23 AM)needle link Wrote:Maybe she'll make six figures. I kind of doubt it, though.

She won't (except maybe with endorsement income, and even then I doubt it).  The WNBA has a fixed salary scale for rookie draft picks.  The 2012 first-year base salary for picks 1-4 in the first round is $47,589.  That's far less than an NBA rookie.  But it's not a terrible income.  I bet it's pretty similar to what the average non-athlete Stanford graduate makes right after graduation.

Also, keep in mind that not that long ago, male pro athletes were pretty modestly paid.  One of my Stanford professors was a star basketball player in college, but opted to get a Ph.D. rather than playing in the NBA.  He said that he actually made as much money as a teaching assistant in grad school as he would have made as an NBA rookie.

(Edited to correct typo)

Re: Nneka and the draft - Farm93 - 04-12-2012

Title IX only takes one so far.

However thanks to Title IX, Nneka can probably count on winning two Olympic gold medals.  She will also be able to run the motivational circuit route.  Then after a few years in the WNBA she will be ready to move into coaching.  In that realm she will be able to make a reasonable living for decades.

It will not be the NBA money, but it will be a good ride.

Besides, even with the mega dollars of recent NBA players many still go on to declare bankruptcy in the years after the league forces them out of the game.

Re: Nneka and the draft - 76lsjumb - 04-12-2012

(04-12-2012, 12:53 PM)Farm93 link Wrote:However thanks to Title IX, Nneka can probably count on winning two Olympic gold medals. 

Unfortunately, thanks to Geno, if she's going to win an Olympic medal this year, it looks like it will have to be in gymnastics [her pre-basketball sport...].  >:(



Re: Nneka and the draft - FarmBoy - 04-12-2012

It might not be hardscrable, but to have to go ply your trade overseas, away from friends and families, would be hard. For a young kid, it could be an adventure (though also scary if you end up on a team where you have to have a personal driver for safety reasons), but I think it would wear on you after a few seasons. There was an interesting story on NPR a few weeks back on some ladies playing for Russian team, making several multiples of their WNBA salaries, but it sounds a bit hectic. Living in a place where you don't understand the language or culture can be hard and takes a certain personality, which a lot of top athletes, coming from non-privileged backgrounds, probably don't have. Lots of them have probably never left the states prior to signing with an overseas team.

Re: Nneka and the draft - Robbie - 04-12-2012

The sister of one of my colleagues recently retired after a number of years playing professional basketball in Europe. She is now a ski instructor in Romania.

I haven't decided if that is hardship duty or a romantic youth.

Re: Nneka and the draft - FarmBoy - 04-12-2012

Kind of on topic is this blog from Christen Press detailing her life playing soccer in Sweden. It's probably not as big a culture shock as going to Russia or Romania, but when everyone around you sounds like they're record players going in reverse, I'm sure it can be disorienting. Still, life in Scandanavia ain't a bad place to be, as long as you can avoid the winter months when non-locals tend to get depressed without regular sunlight: http://www.gostanford.com/sports/w-soccer/spec-rel/041112aaa.html

She has some great insight into how the team mentality reflects their socialist values as a society (am I getting to political?) and a quote from Faulner to boot.