Shaquille O’Neal is an all-and-out Angel Reese supporter. So when he appeared on the Unapologetically Angel podcast last Thursday, the 52-year-old gave a suggestion to Reese that would help her match the popularity of Caitlin Clark. While he disguised his advice as coming from an NBA legend that could benefit every female athlete, Reese surely learned the next steps to being a fan favorite. However, Rachel DeMita challenged Shaq’s proposal and instead pointed out a shortcoming that can hurt his intentions, if the WNBA does follow his suggestion.

On Monday’s episode of her podcast, DeMita pointed out the flaw in Shaq’s proposal which gave a clearer picture of the WNBA and the female athletes. “I’m going to stop him right there because he lost me. He lost me immediately with that argument… Saying to lower the rim this much. Shaq, I love you. You have helped me so much in my career. I adore you as a friend. But really… you really think that lowering the rim this much is going to have more women dunking? I can’t give you he’s saying not this much. Just this much. Like you’re joking,” DeMita stated.

Shaq had opined that the rim should be lowered a bit. According to him, fans watch Clark and Steph Curry because they consistently score with logo threes, which is a rarity in both basketball leagues. Therefore, if the rim is lowered more and more female athletes would be able to dunk and that might attract a lot of fans to watch the game, something that also attracts many in the NBA.

“So I’m telling you now if you just lower like this right there. I’m not saying go right there. I’m just you know what you need to do one day,” Shaq stated. However, the suggestion didn’t go down well with DeMita.

“If you want to see the kind of dunks that Ja Morant is doing… That a prime Russell Westbrook was doing, that a current LeBron James at nearly 40 years old… the kind of dunks that he’s throwing down, you would have to lower the rim for the women. Probably 7 and 1/2 to 8 ft to see that kind of explosiveness… that kind of shiftiness in the air for women to catch bodies like the men are doing. If you’re going to start comparing the women’s game to the men’s game, you’re going to have to lower it much more than that. Much like this was silly… this is silly,” DeMita concluded.

Explaining the mechanics of the muscles in men and women, she further added, 

“You’re going to have to lower it quite a bit. It is scientifically proven that women do not have as much natural athleticism, strength, quickness, physical ability as the men do… and that is okay. So you… we’re going to need a bigger handicap for that if you want our vertical to all of a sudden be that much higher,”

According to the

Sports Analytics Group at Berkley, the average height of a W player is just 6 feet. Meanwhile, male athletes who dunk regularly like LeBron James are 6 feet 9 inches. So to have more W athletes dunk, the height would have to be lowered more. As of now, only 33 dunks have been performed in the W, with the credit for 23 of them going to Brittney Griner.

Now Griner is comparable to James Sr. in height and hence DeMita shrugged off the suggestion pointing out that a small change in the height of the rim won’t make much difference. And the idea previously also has had different takes from different entities associated with basketball.

Geno Auriemma supports lowering the rim while his mentee opposes it

The idea to lower the rim started when the Huskies head coach Geno Auriemma recommended the same more than a decade ago. Back in 2012, the Hall of Famer head coach suggested how women’s basketball can have more eyes. Comparing the case to volleyball where the women’s net is at least 7-ft lower than men’s, he told

ESPN, “What makes fans not want to watch women’s basketball is that some of the players can’t shoot and they miss layups and that forces the game to slow down. How do help improve that? Lower the rim (from 10 feet).”

In 2012, the former Chicago Sky star Elena Delle Donne opined that she too wanted to lower the height of the rim so that athletes could perform the dunk. 

“I think [lowering the rims] would bring a whole different aspect to the game and bring viewership as well and show the athleticism of our women,” Delle Donne enumerated.

Meanwhile, when Diana Taurasi, who has played under Auriemma, was asked her opinion on the same, she expounded sarcastically that

“might as well put us in skirts and back in the kitchen.” Though the idea looks tempting, we should consider the fact that lowering rims somewhat hints that women’s athleticism is less than that of men. Plus, it also can become a problem for veterans who have practiced at higher heights. Maybe that is why DT was against the idea.

Nonetheless, Shaq’s comments have once again ignited an argument. And it remains to be seen if other players will also come forward to share their take on the idea.