A highlight from Winsidr Show - Mid FA Grades
Automatic TRANSCRIPT
All your ticket purchases welcome to the wind insiders show. Right off the top, let's just dive into before we get into the grades and the recent moves that broke today. News broke, Howard magdala, the next broke, I believe, earlier today, or maybe it was even yesterday, I don't know, it's been a whirlwind of a few days, but that the league not only was investigating Las Vegas aces for the hamby allegations that the Players Association and the league, that's one investigation. So there's actually a second investigation going on right now, excuse me. That the league is investigating, and while you know what, I'll just read directly from the article. According to those familiar with the allegations, the pattern alleged that the team followed typically in the team followed typically involved a high level member of the aces instructing the agent of a potential signee either free agent or player working on an extension. That at the conclusion of the phone call between the team and the agent, the agent would receive a call and an offer for a specific amount of money for a particular preselected company. The work involved would be negotiable, according to those familiar with the allegations. So in layman's terms, basically they were getting them quote unquote jobs under the table in association basically with their current job with the Las Vegas aces so that they could go around the cap so that they could get more money in these players pockets without it impacting the cap and thusly allowing them to make a super team or get players on team friendly deals so they could do other moves to make the team better and to me that is the definition of cheating. Just flat out like you are making it you are going around the rules so your team has an advantage over the other teams. I don't know what else to call it. I don't think this can be a simple fine slap on the wrist. This is serious allegations if true. And I tweeted this out and while I don't think the league is going to revoke the title, I think it has to be like at least thought about discussed whatever because, I mean, this is how I view it. If they're not going to make the punishment a legitimate punishment, you're basically sending a message to the league that we're okay with doing this. I mean, we saw coaches GMs and owners yesterday tweeting out or, again, maybe it was today. Tweeting out, you know, if there's going to be rules, let's follow them, if not, just let us know there's no rules. So we don't have to follow them. That's the definition of an unfair playing field, and that's definition of cheating in my mind. What's your thoughts on this, Rachel? I think it's interesting when you, when TMA, team marketing agreement became permissible. Which basically was like, you know, you could set up certain speaking engagements and be able to make up to like $4000 a month outside of, you know, additional through the team, you know, just different marketing opportunities for these players to make money. I feel like that really started to change things. And it blurred the lines a little bit. And I think it's opening Pandora's box. It didn't open Pandora's box. This could open Pandora's box. But clearly, we all, we all we all can agree. That we are going to advocate for these women these players to make as much money as they possibly can. We all can agree on that. What I'm not going to be okay with is bending the CBA, breaking the CBA, you know, blatantly breaking the rules, I mean, I'm just not about that. I don't respect that. I think that clearly there is a very distinct what am I trying to say? Through talking to everybody through this free agency, you know, people, sources. I mean, it was very, very evident that this was going on is very evident that there was a lot of frustration. There was a lot of confusion. People didn't quite understand what can we do. You had certain agents out here really trying to push the envelope because they see what may be a place like Las Vegas is doing. So I am not about cheating. I'm not about pushing the envelope to the point where the line is so blurred that it's just messy to me. I can't get, I can't get behind that. I think it needs to be clearly defined. And clearly, I mean, you've talked about, we talk about the New York liberty, breaking the blatantly breaking the rules for the charter flight thing. $5000 fine. This is minuscule compared to what we're looking at right now, in my opinion. The direction of where this goes from here on out is going to change the trajectory of the WNBA. In my oh yeah. I mean, I just think this is, I think this is a much, much, much bigger story than we realize right now. Oh, a 100%. I mean, we're going to look back at this and this is and look, here's my thing. Good can come from a bad thing, right? Like, this was a bad thing. This was cheating. There should be punishments. Whether it's take the title, whether it's draft picks in the future. Whether it's financial whatever. It needs to be something that actually impacts it. Otherwise, it's just like, what are we even doing? And Rachel, to your point about the marketing, the thing I always want to say is I've always found like, again, I don't know why I have to say this because I think it's pretty clear and obvious. We want the players to make as much money as possible. But the way the current marketing agreement for additional money is set up is idiotic in my mind because you have the situation like Courtney Williams, perfect example. Free agent, not employed by the Connecticut sun by the terms of normal sports, free agency, whatever. But yet is in all this marketing promotion