SOON, the WNBA, the longest-surviving professional basketball league for women in the United States, will begin a series of endeavors designed to celebrate its 10th anniversary.
The size and scope of the celebration has yet to be defined. But with the championship chase four months away, David Stern, commissioner of the parent NBA, virtually guarantees similar WNBA celebrations well into the future.
After all, the WNBA already has exceeded the expectations of Stern and other NBA officials who turned a nebulous dream conceived shortly after the 1996 Atlanta Olympics into reality.
"From an NBA perspective, we couldn't be happier," Stern said. "This is exactly where we wanted to be. It's year 10, you know. If you don't take us seriously now and don't accept our permanency, I don't know what else to say. That's the long story to a short question."
Future looks bright
Stern and Donna Orender, in her second year as president of the WNBA, are in Houston to take part in activities surrounding Sunday's NBA All-Star Game. Orender is as passionate and exuberant about the future of the WNBA as her boss. Although critics continue to trumpet negative predictions about the future of the league, Orender and Stern offer a warehouse full of reasons why they believe the league will survive, and even thrive.
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WNBA appears to be proving its critics wrong
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