Yesterday Dallas Maverick’s owner Mark Cuban made the statement that he would consider drafting Baylor’s Brittney Griner, the player who absolutely dominated women’s college basketball the past few seasons. Cuban said “You never know unless you give somebody a chance, and it’s not like the likelihood of any late-50s draft pick has a good chance of making it.”
The last half of that sentence I agree with. Second round draft picks don’t usually make it in the NBA, so it wouldn’t be much of a risk. And as far as publicity stunts go, it would be pretty incredible. But the first part of that quote is ridiculous, Cuban knows there is zero chance Griner can play in the NBA. What’s interesting to me is that most major news outlets (here’s the original report from The Dallas Morning News, as well as USA Today’sand ESPN’s) covered this “story,” but none of them were willing to mention this.
The thing that makes Griner great is being bigger and taller than everyone else on the court. At 6’8″, 207 lbs she’s a giant among women’s college basketball players, likely the best center to ever play the game. But in the NBA she’s not a center, not even close. She’s more like the equivalent of a very skinny small forward. Griner is roughly the same size and shape as the Celtics Jeff Green (listed at 6’9″, 235). Can you imagine her playing against Jeff Green?
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
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