Farewell to the GOAT

Our admiration for Elena Delle Donne is long documented. Since our very first post about the then-Delaware Blue Hen in January 2012, we've featured her a dozen times in these pages. Today, perhaps our final post in her honor, at least with respect to her athletic exploits.

This week, Elena Delle Donne hung up her sneaks, retiring after a ten-season WNBA career. The two-time league MVP averaged 19.5 points and 6.7 boards per game, making 93.7% of her free throws and 39.2% of her three-pointers. In 2019, she led the Washington Mystics to the franchise's first and only league title, becoming the first player in WNBA to post 50/40/90 (field goal, three-point, and free throw percentage) season. That year, she missed three of 117 free throws. Oh, and she played most of the season with three herniated discs in her back.

Sadly, Delle Donne's final years mirrored those of Larry Bird, who spent his last seasons in Boston in perpetual pain, his back wrecked by years of pounding. Delle Donne played her entire career with Lyme Disease, and fought through a series of injuries. She missed the entire 2020 and 2024 seasons, and only played three games in 2021. 

Nonetheless, she's a first-ballot Hall of Famer. I'm sure her enshrinement in Springfield will be as important to her as her place in the G:TB Pantheon.

The Logho

Jerry West is legendarily the model for the image that makes up the NBA's iconic logo. The Laker hall of famer is dribbling with the ball in his left hand, and while time and athletic evolution render his pose perhaps a bit stiff, the logo's still striking. And The Logo, the moniker bestowed on West for his place in the league's artistic history, is a phenomenal nickname, even as the humble West thinks it calls too much attention to him.

(As an aside born of laziness and self-interest, I seem to remember a discussion here or via email some years back about turning this picture of Ghitsa posterizing Hakeem Olajuwon into an NBA-style logo for use in G:TB merch. What ever happened to that? Someone get on it.)

Last year, the WNBA updated its logo and branding guidelines, going from a dated font and replacing the player image that sure as hell looked like Sue Bird to a more streamlined overall effect. The league freed the logo image from the box it was in and added a vivid orange color as primary, which sets it apart from the general trend towards flag drapery in American sports. For comparison's sake, here are the three logos the league has used since its inception in 1995.

Since the introduction of the new logo, speculation has run rampant about the inspiration for the image. The league itself has stated publicly that the logo isn't meant to represent any single player, but c'mon man.

WNBA players themselves have an ongoing debate and investigation, focused largely on the size and placement of the logoplayer's bun. The two primary suspects: Diana Taurasi and Elena Delle Donne.

Bullets Forever editor Albert Lee (who I think is a fellow member of the W&M tribe - the Tribe tribe, if you will) argues fairly convincingly for our girl EDD in this piece posted last year. Notwithstanding Isaiah Thomas and Jordan McRae's misplaced argument for Sue Bird, who doesn't wear a bun on the court.

Here's my case for Delle Donne - compare this with the logo:

Yeah, the bun's not visible in this shot, but EDD does wear one on court. Everything else is close enough for me to vote for our fave. 

And now you know.

Someone get on that Ghitsa logo thing. We got merch to move.

City of Champions

First the Capitals (well, really, first the Kastles, who've won six World Tennis Tour titles since 2008) captivated the National Capital region, and now the Washington Mystics have brought a title to the DMV. G:TB fave Elena Delle Donne scored 21 despite three injured discs in her back, and WNBA Finals series MVP Emma Meesseman scored 22 as the Mystics defeated the Connecticut Sun, 89-78, to win the fifth and deciding game of the series.

The Washington Nationals kick off their very first NLCS this evening. DC United travels to Toronto to play a first-round MLS playoff match next week. The Washington NFL franchise...well, they will likely still exist for a while.

Crush Groove 2: Katie Lou is Who

Our fondness for former Delaware Blue Hen and current Washington Mystic Elena Delle Donne is long-documented. She's been every bit the stud in the professional ranks as she was in college, averaging 20 points and 7 boards in six professional seasons, and winning the WNBA MVP award in 2015. She still tops the list, number 11 in our program, number one in our hearts.

But she's got some competition.

I don't, as you might imagine, watch a ton of ladies' hoops. Call me shallow, and you might be right, but it also isn't on offer nearly as much as men's. I do, though, try to watch the women's Final Four every year. And this year I was reminded of a player who caught my attention way back when she was a freshman.

UCONN grad Katie Lou Samuelson is a 6'3" wing with a great touch from deep and advanced offensive instincts. She made 41.7% of her three-pointers in college, finishing her career with 371 triples. She scored 18.6 points, pulled down 6.6 boards, and handed out 3.9 assists a game her senior season. She's really fun to watch on the court.



And back to the shallow thing, she's athletic-cute on the court, which is nice. But she looks like this off the court, about which I had no idea (hey, if Shlara gets to objectify Jay Wright, I can think a lady baller is attractive):



Huge Larry Bird fan, to boot, and she just got drafted by the Chicago Sky, the same team that brought Delle Donne into the league. I think it might be fate.

Keeping It 100

On Tuesday night, four-time women's NCAA Division I basketball champion Connecticut defeated sixth-ranked South Carolina, 66-55, marking the Huskies' 100th consecutive victory. That's an amazing number. The excellent Sally Jenkins wrote a compelling piece on the victors' run, calling out John Feinstein by name under a headline that read, 'Bored by UConn women's dominance? You must not like basketball.'

I was amused by the rare public slap, and enjoyed the article's dissection of Geno Auriemma's exacting standards. But I didn't think much about the thesis until I got a direct message from a friend on Twitter, which read:

"As a keen and varied sports observer, father of daughters, and possessor of Y chromosome and all of its lunkhead qualities, curious about your take on UConn women and 100 in a row and where it rates on your spectrum."

I am, in fact, a keen and varied sports observer. I watch all kinds of athletic contests, male and female. I've watched more women's soccer over the last six months than I've watched NFL football. It is also true that I possess one or two lunkhead qualities. But I do have daughters, and I'm an unabashed lefty women's rights supporter. Hell, I've written multiple posts right here about Elena Delle Donne.

And after careful thought, I realized that I don't give much of a damn about the UConn streak. In fact, I kinda agree with the aforementioned Feinstein, who responded to his close friend Jenkins this morning. The nut of his thesis is basically this: I prefer men's basketball because I know it better, and because it's more competitive:

But, Sally my love, here’s the thing: I’m going to continue to watch the men because I know and understand the game and I know and understand the people. If you prefer the women’s game—or, for that matter—the NBA, I am 100 percent fine with that.

I would never criticize you for not finding Saturday’s game between UMBC and UMass-Lowell as interesting as I will find it.

And I’d never call you stupid for two reasons: 1: I know you are smart as hell. And 2: you’ll always be the sister I never had.

Geno Auriemma is a hell of a coach. Connecticut's accomplishment is stunning, incredible, and unlikely to be repeated. Unless they do it again, because as Feinstein points out, the rising tide of women's basketball has yet to lift all boats. UConn has yet to have an opponent come within 10 points during the current streak. That's impossible. Or at least impossible in a sport that's got any kind of real competitive balance.

But it's a crazy streak, regardless. It just doesn't move me.

Finally, Some Good News from Washington

We're gonna do a post every other day this godforsaken year whether they're any good or not, so help me Marcus. I'm working on a longform one, and I've got some of our contributors hard at work on some recurring bits, but none of that is ready to go today, so instead, a formal celebration of something we all already know about.

Delle Donne!

Our fondness for the 6'5" former Delaware Blue Hen is well documented. And now she's coming to Washington, reportedly because she wants to be nearer to her family, with which she's famously close. Chicago's loss is our gain. The 2015 WNBA has averaged 20.5 points, 6.6 boards, and 1.7 blocks per game in her four professional seasons, never missing the playoffs with the Sky. She'll make the Mystics instant contenders, a status deeply unfamiliar to Washington's bumbling franchise.

(So bumbling, in fact, that I can't even waste my hard-earned money on Delle Donne swag yet, because they haven't slapped any together and put it for sale. Can you imagine that happening to a big free agent inked by Little Danny Starfucker?)

John Wall welcomed EDD to town, as did teammate Emma Meesseman. No word yet from former opponent Wale.