The WNBA is Having A Week
Toronto Tempo Debuts. Golden State Valkyries Have Expansion Draft
It’s the freakin’ weekend, y’all! And while I have plans that I’ll never get to because I’m over the age of 35 and thus always tired, I hope your Saturday and Sunday are fruitful. As I write this, we are just a few hours removed from the 2024 WNBA Expansion Draft.
TLDR: The newest (ready) WNBA franchise, the Golden State Valkyries, had a “draft” in which they could pick a player from an existing WNBA team to fill out their roster. Existing teams could “protect” six of their players from the draft, but the rest? Good luck! Muwhahaha. Anyway, here was the results:
And some hype content because why not?
By the way, I’m still not sure how I feel about a team being called ‘Golden State’ not having gold in their color scheme. They’re playing up in San Francisco and even their football team, the 49ers, is BOTH a Gold Rush reference AND has a little goldish trim on their uniforms. Maybe I’m just nitpicking.
I digress. The expansion draft must be rough if you’re someone like newly drafted Kayla Thornton, right?
You’re on top of the world. You’re playing for an original WNBA Franchise, the New York Liberty. You JUST won a championship. One day you get up and you learn that 1) there’s going to be an expansion draft and 2) your team didn’t protect you from being drafted. Then BOOM: Pack your bags, kid. You’re going to the land of summertime fog to join a squad made up of spare parts.
It’s insane that people are only caring about mental health for athletes now because that would have me absolutely gutted. Speaking of, did you see Neal Brennan’s bit about that? (3:06 mark)
Best of luck to the Valkyries. I’m sure games will be filled with true basketball fans and some tech bros who claim they were fans since 1994 up in the stands.
In other WNBA news, people are UPSET at the name reveal for the Toronto franchise. The team will be known at the “Toronto Tempo” moving forward.
And while there’s always going to be some complaints about an identity reveal, the Tempo has gotten a lot of flak for its name. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t hate the name, but I realize it isn’t great either. For one, I don’t think Toronto is a good city to do alliteration with. And “Toh-Ron-Toh-Tem-Poh” has too many repeating sounds and to me, sounds a bit jarring. To be fair, I felt the same way about the New Orleans Pelicans when they came out.
But the other thing is that “Tempo” kind of sounds like a Slamball team. Remember Slamball? It was basketball on trampolines with team names like ‘Steal’ and ‘Bouncers.’
Plus there’s the issue it looks like an Indiana Pacers logo knockoff, (with a maroon and periwinkle that’s close to the lavender color scheme of the Valkyries) and the name opens itself up for jokes if they lose. For example:
“Down Tempo. Toronto Loses Six Straight.”
But you know what? Winning cures everything. We don’t think the Los Angeles Lakers or the Cleveland Cavaliers are weird because they’ve either won a lot or were around for a long time, so maybe I’m just tripping.
Speaking of silly names, thank you for reading this edition of Just the Sandwich. I finally had some merch designed. Check it out here, if you’re down to clown.
