Why the Sooners Will Always Have Paris

The most talented college basketball player in the country is a physically imposing center good enough right now to play professionally, but stuck in college because of the league's minimumage rules. But this isn't the story of Ohio State phenomenon Greg Oden. It's about Oklahoma's Courtney Paris, who dominated the opposition all season and led the ninth-ranked Sooners into the NCAA women's tournament this weekend. Paris will have to wait two more years to take her game to the next level.

On Saturday Paris scored 13 points, grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds, dished out three assists, and led her team to a 74–60 win over Southeast Missouri State in the first round of the women's tournament — and that was one of her worst games of the season. Paris entered the tournament averaging 23.6 points and 16.2 rebounds a game. Her streak of 59 consecutive games with doubledigit points and rebounds is unprecedented in women's or men's basketball.

Unlike Oden, the freshman who is widely expected to be the first pick in the NBA draft in three months, the sophomore Paris has little choice but to spend four years in college. Commissioner David Stern created a controversy when he instituted a new rule this season that players had to be at least a full year out of high school before they could play in the NBA, but that rule isn't nearly as restrictive as the rule governing entrance into the WNBA. The women's league, which is controlled by the NBA, requires players to be four years out of high school.

That means Paris has two options: Stay at Oklahoma for two more years or take the league to court. It's unclear whether she could win such a case (the NBA's rule has not been challenged, and former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett lost a similar challenge to the NFL's rules), and even if she did win, such a suit might not be worth the trouble: While Oden will make millions in the NBA, the WNBA's salary cap dictates that the first pick in the 2007 draft will make $43,200. (The maximum salary in the WNBA is $93,000.)

As soon as she leaves college ball, Paris will be able to make more than that in endorsements, but she might be less inclined than some players to challenge the rule because she comes from a more privileged background: Her father is former San Francisco 49ers offensive lineman Bubba Paris, who played nine seasons in the NFL.

But the WNBA's rule doesn't just deprive Paris of the chance to earn a living in her chosen profession, it denies the league and its fans the opportunity to see the best post player in women's basketball play against the best competition. For now, fans will have to settle for seeing her take on Marquette Monday night, on ESPN2, in the second round of the women's tournament.

To fans watching Paris for the first time, her size is her most striking trait. At 6-feet-4-inches, she's often the tallest player on the court. And like Shaquille O'Neal — the men's basketball player she's most often compared to — she's always the largest. As is the custom at most colleges, Oklahoma does not list the weights of female athletes, but USA Basketball listed her at 250 pounds when she played in international competition last summer. She might be even bigger than that; she doesn't look much smaller than her father, who was listed as 6-feet-6-inches and 295 pounds when he played for the 49ers.

Paris has said she wants to lose weight, but that doesn't seem necessary. Her imposing size is part of what makes her such a force in the low post, and her conditioning has never seemed to be a problem late in games. Although she arrived at Oklahoma after a high school career in which she was so dominant physically that she didn't need to do anything other than stand under the basket and wait for the ball, she has developed her footwork to the point where she looks graceful when running the floor.

Many of Oklahoma's opponents have decided that the only way to play defense against Paris is to foul her: She went to the line 230 times this season and made a Shaq-like 56.6% of her free throws. (O'Neal hit 57.5% of his free throws in college and has a slightly lower percentage in his NBA career.) That tactic has reduced a few Oklahoma games to boring free-throw shooting contests. If Paris were in the WNBA, she'd have competition that wouldn't need to resort to fouling her to stop her. Playing straight-up defense against her wouldn't always work even at the next level — Paris would be ranked among the elite players in the WNBA were she drafted now — but the low post battles in the WNBA would at least be a challenge for Paris and a fair fight for her opponents.

But that isn't the biggest reason the WNBA should let Paris and other top college players, like Tennessee's Candace Parker, leave school early to enter the league if they so choose. The biggest reason is simple fairness. For the NBA to let Oden and other men play while the WNBA keeps Paris and other women out (even though Paris is four months older than Oden, and women reach their athletic peaks earlier than men) is exactly the type of double standard that the WNBA has rightly been praised for helping to eliminate.

Mr. Smith covers basketball for AOLSportsBlog.com.