Some sports players manage to become cultural forces whose popularity extends beyond the court. In February, NBA player Stephen Curry and WNBA player Sabrina Ionescu\u2019s top-tier three-point shooting led to a showdown at the NBA\u2019s All-Star Weekend. In the \u201cSteph versus Sabrina 3-Point Challenge,\u201d Curry managed to beat Ionescu 29-26.<\/p>\n
According to varsity boys basketball player sophomore Rylan See, this event was the first coeducational professional basketball competition hosted by the NBA and WNBA.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though Sabrina lost, it was exciting to watch, as we got to see the best shooters from both the NBA and WNBA duel it out for the first time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
According to See, Ionescu\u2019s ability to score at a similar level to contestants from the men-only 3-point contest is encouraging.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Ionescu) actually tied Damian Lillard\u2019s score, who was the (men\u2019s) 3-point champion this year,\u201d he said. \u201c(She) showed that she was able to shoot the ball just as well as the best shooter in the world, which will encourage more girls to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
The showdown drew 5.4 million viewers, making it the most-viewed competition during All-Star Saturday Night. According to varsity girls basketball player sophomore Lena Duggan, the contest\u2019s popularity \u2014 combined with Curry\u2019s \u2014 improves the WNBA\u2019s outreach.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople love to see Steph Curry, so seeing him associated with a WNBA player will likely bring more attention to the WNBA,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Boys junior varsity basketball coach Matt Passell hopes that Ionescu\u2019s performance will help audiences better recognize WNBA players\u2019 skills.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully, other events like this \u2014 where you have good competition between men and women \u2014 (will make it) so that the people who wouldn\u2019t tune into a women\u2019s basketball contest get to see how talented they are,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Duggan echoed how the contest garners not only more attention but more regard for women\u2019s basketball.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt shows that the WNBA should be respected more because the best shooter in the NBA was competing against one of the best WNBA shooters,\u201d she said. \u201cThis brings more attention to the talent that the WNBA has.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some sports players manage to become cultural forces whose popularity extends beyond the court. In February, NBA player Stephen Curry and WNBA player Sabrina Ionescu\u2019s top-tier three-point shooting led to a showdown at the NBA\u2019s All-Star Weekend. In the \u201cSteph versus Sabrina 3-Point Challenge,\u201d Curry managed to beat Ionescu 29-26. According to varsity boys basketball…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":163,"featured_media":27003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,1],"tags":[1985,604492286],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnoracle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27002"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnoracle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnoracle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnoracle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/163"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnoracle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27002"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gunnoracle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27005,"href":"https:\/\/gunnoracle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27002\/revisions\/27005"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnoracle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnoracle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnoracle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnoracle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}