Candace Parker has Lost Her Mind

The Tennessee star will skip her senior season and leave Knoxville early to join the WNBA. There are a lot of good reasons to skip you senior year: making millions of dollars in pro sports, pursuing a passion outside of academia, or doing enough drugs to get thrown out. Nowhere on the list is traveling the country to play in front of crowds of 8,500. The idea that a person would leave college early to go to the WNBA is so funny that I forgot to laugh. Then I remembered that Candace Parker is going to leave college early to go to the WNBA and I laughed. Do you know what the rookie salary is for a player entering the 2008 season? $44,000. That's it. That's not enough to justify being a professional basketball player. That's barely enough to justify being a professional basketball.

If a man was dominating college basketball, I'd encourage him to make the jump to the pros, so why is it different for women? Because the NBA is one of the strongest sports leagues in the world while the WNBA is a running joke about lesbians. Unlike its pro counterpart, women's college basketball gets national recognition, media time, and most importantly, respect. The women's NCAA tournament gets full coverage on ESPN and coaches like Pat Summitt, Kay Yow and Geno Auriemma are legends in the sport. The WNBA's only moment of glory comes at the Shooting Stars contest, the All-Star Saturday event that is most likely to coincide with a beer run. If the slogan 'We Got Next' is true, then they've been waiting over ten years for the first game to end.

I can understand Parker's side of the argument to some extent. "Why risk an injury?" "What do I have left to prove in college?" "Why am I so tall?" Logically speaking, it probably makes sense for her to turn pro early. There's no doubt that she's ready for a tougher level of competition. And the endorsements that come from being the first woman leave college early will surely make it a sound financial decision. But a move like this is typically associated with taking a step forward in one's career, and I don't think that's necessarily the case here. I think it's entirely possible we won't hear from Candace again, at least until she's trying to hit a half court shot alongside Jordan Farmar and James Worthy.

Then again if it ends up preventing the LA Sparks from using their first pick on Darka Milicic, I'm all for it.