I think Steph and DB should have both counted!!

I wasn’t sure either, but my guess is it is in reference to DB’s departure from the Fever and her former teammates’ public shade about it.

Yes. Seems the reporting slippage between “lockout” and “strike” is related to the refusal to clarify or investigate other deceptive conflations (revenue vs profits, the role of NBA-aligned owners / coaches / Adam Silver v-v Cathy, etc.). Just obfuscation of power + labor all around.

thank you for this!!!

“a source close to the league said that these G league dudes keep getting hired for reasons related to union busting” (said ESPN and the Athletic…never)

call me a conspiracy theory but seems related to the death grip the NBA owners are trying to keep on the league — would be great to see some journalist investigate the relationship between NBA type hires and owner hostility to players’ union / revenue sharing

Basically the WBPA public relations + messaging strategy is TOP SHELF. These women are not just brilliant at basketball. With impeccable timing + execution, they are multiplying their leverage over some true scumbag bosses + giving the rest of us a clinic in labor communications. Respect. 👑
#WNBA

This is why they want to fire her / will eventually fire her. But, as the one anonymous jackass says in the ESPN piece, #WNBA owners are now in a corner where doing so makes them “look weak.” They have two options: let a disgraced person manage bargaining *or* disgrace themselves by firing her.

If I am a worker in a contract fight, I much prefer to be dealing with a boss who constantly undermines the legitimacy of the management position by saying offensive and embarrassing things in public. So much better than a slick, manipulative, and rhetorically gifted boss. The owners know this.

This isn’t because Cathy Deloitte pro-labor. It’s because she’s so spectacularly bad at her job—which is to carry out the agenda of Original Sin Adam, ideally without irreparably alienating literally every #WNBA player, coach, and fan—that she is driving people toward the union.

Unsatisfying reporting notwithstanding, the quotes do suggest that at least some of the #WNBA owners see Cathy Deloitte as a liability for *their* interests (read: unchecked greed).

wtf! shame on them!

Workers can prepare for a lockout and use it to their advantage! That is likely something the WBPA is doing amid the stonewalling + intimidation from Cathy, Adam Silver, other #WNBA exec management.

Learn about more about strikes vs lockouts from @labornotes.bsky.social: