By: Charlie Fragassi

If you have tuned into the NBA playoffs at all this year, you’ll see an entirely different look then last year. Last year, COVID-19 stopped the season for a little while and the top teams were forced to play the playoffs in an NBA bubble, in Disney World, in Florida.

This year, the NBA had few COVID complications except that they started the season later, but they were able to finish the regular season normally and go into the playoffs.

This year’s playoffs have been really fun because they had a play in tournament for the bottom seeds, to see who made it into the playoffs, and who didn’t. This is a new feature that was different from last year.

Teams were also able to travel to each other’s stadiums for games and pretty much all NBA teams had some sort of fan capacity so there are fans at all the games, which is good for the players, team, and the fans.

Last year was a pretty crazy year for the NBA, but it’s good to see things get back under control and for them to have a somewhat normal playoff, and hopefully they have no COVID complications.

Some NBA fans even say that last year’s NBA finals winners, the Los Angles Lakers, win shouldn’t even count due to the fact that the season was cut short and the teams played in a bubble. But overall, it doesn’t matter where you play, the winners are going to win and it’ll stay that way forever.

By: Alexandra Rimbu

Rap star, J. Cole, has ended his short-lived pro basketball career in light of a “family obligation”.

During his time with Rwanda Patriots BBC, of the Basketball Africa League, he scored 5 points, grabbed 5 rebounds, and tallied 3 assists in 45 minutes, in three appearances – an extremely sub-par performance. This has prompted many to mock Cole’s career. Others, however, are more focused on the fact that his career should never have begun.

As Cole has previously expressed, his two dreams in life were to pursue music and basketball. Cole focused more on music however, and he is now a mainstream rap star.

Basketball has always remained as one of his hobbies though, and it is for this particular reason that many argue he should never have been given a chance to play pro, because the fact remains that basketball is just a hobby for him.

Cole told ‘SLAM Magazine’, “The main parallel that I always draw between music and basketball is like, ‘Yo, it’s just a matter of hours. The difference between the pro guy that sits on the bench and the superstar, it’s just a matter of intentional hours”. Cole has put in these intentional hours for music, but he has not put in the intentional hours for basketball. 

Many label Cole as being selfish in this respect. He has not put in the effort the way others have, to build a career for himself in basketball, rather he was served it on a silver platter. He used his celebrity to take part in his favorite hobby, contradicting even himself. How can he claim that in order to make it big you need to put in the hours when he himself has not done so?

Cole has robbed more deserving athletes of a chance. Athletes who make it based on their skill, not their name. Athletes who sacrifice their lives to make it. Athletes who have put in those intentional hours.

So, it comes that Cole’s finished basketball career is, in fact, a blessing. For his spot can now be given up to someone more deserved, who will be able to accomplish the dream they have so long strived for.

By: Alexandra Rimbu

Image taken from: https://www.startribune.com/new-timberwolves-coach-chris-finch-we-re-not-a-million-miles-away/600026189/

The MN Timberwolves lost to the New York Knicks on Sunday, Feb 21, reaching a league-worst of 7-24 this season. This loss was ultimately what caused management to fire head coach Ryan Saunders, whose replacement, Chris Finch, was named shortly after on Monday.

Saunders’s association with the Timberwolves first began in 2019 when he took an assistant job and was later named interim coach after the firing of Tom Thibodeau. Next season, he took on the job permanently, and at age 33, he became the youngest head coach in the league.

The Timberwolves went 43-94 under Saunders, in a little less than two full seasons. They finished with the third-worst record in the league last season and had the worst record so far before his firing.

CBS Sports claimed that Saunders was stuck in “an impossible situation” on some level. They went on to state there was almost “total roster upheaval during his tenure” and that more games were “lost to injury” than you could have counted. And, of course, the absence of star player Karl-Anthony Towns from a majority of the games did not help the situation.

However, with results like that, the coaching change came as no surprise. Finch was a frontrunner for numerous jobs this offseason, and Rosas, the Timberwolves president, said “Chris brings a wealth of basketball experience from his time in the NBA, G League and Internationally. He is one of the most creative basketball minds in the NBA, has success maximizing players, and I am excited to see him bring our team to the next level and beyond.”

The future looks promising for the Timberwolves, and we’ll have to see if Finch lives up to everybody’s expectations.

Editor’s Note: Since this writing, the Timberwolves have yet to get their 1st win under coach Finch.

Image taken from: ttps://www.slamonline.com/wnba/wnbpa-opt-out-cba-after-2019-season/

It’s no secret that the NBA has a larger fan base than the WNBA, but why? People have shown that they don’t really care about the WNBA, and they have been given many opportunities show that they care. According to Sports Illustrated, “In 2007, the WNBA and ESPN reached an eight-year television agreement, thus assuring high-impact exposure.” Even with that exposure, the WNBA is still less popular. Another reason why this is is that they play in the summer and play about half as many games as the NBA teams will play in a season.

Another argument against the WNBA is that it is simply not as fun or interesting as the NBA; you are more likely to see somebody dunk or fly over an opponent in the NBA. Most of that is just genetics and the fact that most women physically are unable to dunk. 

The WNBA started on April 24, 1996 when the NBA board of governors approved the idea of the WNBA to start playing in June of 1997. This year they are celebrating their 23rd season.

They have 12 teams, with either 11 or 12 players on each team, meaning that they have a total of 144 roster spots available. The NBA has 15 players per team with 34 teams, this leaves them with 510 open roster spots. The WNBA has less spots so they are a more exclusive organization, but they still have a smaller fan base. 

The largest difference between the NBA and the WNBA is the pay gap. The average salary for an NBA player is $7.7 million, according to CNBC. The rookie salary for the #1 draft pick, Deandre Ayton, is set at $6.7 million dollars, the #2 draft pick will start at $6 million. Comparatively, the average salary for a WNBA player is only $75,000. The rookie salary in 2019 was $41,965. The WNBA has decided for the 2021 season that they will have a maximum salary of $130,000. 

Some people argue that the WNBA players are overpaid as it is. Others believe that they deserve their pay because in 2017 the WNBA made $25 million in revenue and the NBA made $7.4 billion that same year, according to GrandStand Central. It’s obvious that male sports are generally more popular than their female counterparts playing the same sports.