Should We Stop Making A Big Deal About Brittney Griner’s Dunks? [POLL]
Brittney Griner continues to elevate her game during her senior year at Baylor. Last night in a second round NCAA Tournament win over Florida State she put up 33 points, 22 rebounds and 4 blocks as her team won by 38 points. At this point, the college game is too easy for her.
Also becoming easier for Griner has been dunking the basketball, as she has increased her career dunk total on numerous occasions over the last couple of weeks.
As of right now, Griner has 18 career dunks, more than every other women's college basketball player ever. Combined. It is for that reason that it may be time to stop celebrating Griner's dunks.
Now, I know that sentiment may come off as condescending towards what Griner is doing, but hear me out.
Griner is a tremendous athlete who deserves all the credit in the world for helping to elevate the quality of women's basketball as a whole over the last few years. She is going to make the WNBA an exponentially better product just by existing in it. That is what should people should be celebrating, rather than just the one to three plays per game in which her hands make contact with the rim. It's insulting to someone who performs at such a high level to simply pay attention to her on the condition that she's dunking at the time.
Also, we've already seen it now. We know that she can dunk the basketball. If a male were dunking the ball in similar fashion, nobody would pay any attention to it whatsoever. However, since it's a female doing the dunking in this case, media outlets have decided to patronize her (and female athletes as a whole, indirectly) by making such a huge deal about a very tall, incredibly gifted athlete doing something that they are good at.
I'm sure that Brittney Griner knows that Brittney Griner is deserving of praise for her abilities, but when it only comes in the form of little pats on the back from SportsCenter because 'OH MY GOODNESS SHE'S A GIRL AND SHE CAN ALSO DUNK GOOD GIRL!' it has to come across as a slight insult to her overall game.
Of course, it would be fine if we paid a similar amount of attention to her slams while also crediting her for everything else she does on the court (like destroying opponents on the defensive end), but it doesn't seem as if that is going to happen anytime soon.
What do you think, should we stop making such a big deal about Brittney Griner's dunks and focus on her actual ability to play basketball, or are we right to put the focus on her ability to throw it down? Take our poll below and let us know what you think.