Our relationship is based on trust. So I won’t pretend to have watched a second of the WNBA Finals last night, not when there was a baseball playoffs, Survivor, and…well, anything else. I also won’t pretend to know that the WNBA was in the finals. In fact, like most Americans, I am only vaguely aware of the existence of the WNBA, since most often the subject only appears in fantastic Bill Burr excerpts:
But if you told me this is the kind of intense human drama that plays out every night in this league, I might consider watching it. That is to say, I could come back to it once between rounds of the game. Survivor is finished.
Just watch this clip. We use the word “hero” too often in this culture, but Sabrina Ionescu is a hero in every sense of the word. Blowing your brains out like a freshman pledging a fraternity and getting hazed. Then, not only getting back in the game, but also making a 3 which (checks which team it belongs to) tied the game in the last minute:
If anyone were watching, Ionescu’s exploits would live up to some of the great inspirational moments in history. Joe Montana wins The Chicken Soup game. Jack Youngblood fires Roger Staubach with broken fibula. Kerri Strug successfully lands on a broken ankle. Michael Jordan beats Jazz with 103 degree fever. Pinch-hitting Kirk Gibson homered off Dennis Eckersley on two knees. Tiger won the US Open on a leg he could barely stand on. Curt Schilling and the bloody sock. Hell, everyone still talks about Willis Reed in the 1970 Finals, but he played four minutes and failed to hit 22-foot jumpers in critical moments.
If the WNBA has any sense of marketing, it will make this young warrior’s (pardon the word) courageous display of stoic courage the face of the league. This Amazon. This young girl with the shield. This Valkyrie. Sabrina Ionescu can drink from my canteen at any time. And if it’s after emptying her guts into a bucket, she can keep it.
