Foreign concept: WNBA could lose best players to overseas markets

Most professionals work year-round.

But there's a reason professional athletes don't.

The physical toll that sports at the highest level can take on their bodies necessitates an off-season for rest and healing.

Seek out an NBA player right now and you'll probably find him nowhere near a basketball court.

Seek out a WNBA player after the season ends in August and you'll likely find her nowhere else besides a basketball court.

Yep, you read that right. WNBA players are one of the few exceptions to the rest-in-the-off-season rule.

Professional athletes are just that: professional.

Their goal, like anyone else, is to make as much money as possible doing their jobs.

If a professional female basketball player wants to do that, she'll play in the WNBA. But she'd be doing herself a disservice financially if she didn't also play overseas in the "off-season."

Because corporations and television networks outside the United States aren't inundated by sponsorship and broadcasting opportunities like those here, particularly at the collegiate level, they have more money to spend on professional women's sports.

And that means teams overseas can pay their female players more. Way more, sometimes five times as much for elite players such as Phoenix Mercury star Diana Taurasi, who recently put a lump in the throats of every team and league executive in the WNBA.

Taurasi, who will be the focus of the Chicago Sky's defense Sunday in Phoenix (5 p.m., CN100), mentioned in an interview with ESPN.com that she's tired - and achy. After seven years of playing basketball year-round here and abroad, she's giving serious consideration to giving her body a break and cutting back.

But it wouldn't be on her time overseas.

That's right. Bye-bye, WNBA.

Taurasi says she might take off the 2011 WNBA season.

Not great news, by the way, for the WNBA. Taurasi is not only one of the best players in the league, she's also one of the most recognizable, popular and marketable.

But allegiance to the WNBA aside (and I'm sure Taurasi feels plenty), can you blame Taurasi for having this thought?

Taurasi, along with the rest of the top players in the WNBA, makes about $100,000 a season playing here.

A couple of years ago, Sports Illustrated followed Taurasi around Russia while she played for a team there in the winter.

She reportedly made $500,000 for the season.

If Taurasi wants to protect and conserve her meal ticket (her body), she is spot on in her choice of where to cut back. It's a no-brainer.

I just hope that doesn't make the WNBA a no-go soon.

As the haters always like to point out, the WNBA still has a long way to go. But, 14 years in, it's still alive and kicking. And it wouldn't be if financial prudence wasn't such a top priority.

WNBA owners don't pay out big salaries because they can't afford to. The TV deals aren't there. Neither are the sponsorships. And, as we all know, that's where the real money in sports comes from.

So, that's why WNBA team salary caps are set at a modest (for professional sports teams) $827,000 and why the B-list players in the league are making around $50,000 a season.

Even they make way more money overseas, by the way.

This is a tough one for the WNBA.

You don't want to lose Taurasi or any of your other best players. You don't want to lose any players, period.

But you also don't want to lose the league.

Ballooning salaries just for the sake of player retention would likely sink the entire ship.

For now, I'm afraid all we can do as fans is hope that the players love playing at home in front of their friends and family so much that they'll continue to burn the candle at both ends.

Familiar face: Sky players may feel a bit more at home Sunday in Phoenix because they'll be welcomed by a familiar face.

Candice Dupree is now a member of the Phoenix Mercury. She was the Sky's first draft pick in franchise history (in 2006) and quickly became the team's brightest star and most recognizable face.

Just before the start of this season, Dupree was part of a three-team trade that sent her to Phoenix and brought Shameka Christon and Cathrine Kraayeveld to Chicago from New York.

This season, Dupree is averaging 16.5 points and a team-leading 8.2 rebounds a game for the Mercury.

pbabcock@dailyherald.com