“Disorienting”: Basketball greats talk women’s sport surge at WNBA All-Star weekend

Phoenix played host to the WNBA All-Star Game over the weekend at a time that's both exciting and a bit disorienting for female athletes.

The big picture: Women's sports , and basketball especially , have finally reached a large and engaged audience, but with it has come uninformed opinions and a lack of appreciation for the great players who came before today's stars, some of basketball's biggest names said.

What they're saying: "I am so excited for what's happening in women's basketball, this is everything all of us that have been involved in the WNBA have ever wanted," retired WNBA superstar Sue Bird said Friday at an event at Crescent Ballroom.

• "It's also been really hard to have people enter this space … who have no historical feel or context [and] give their takes," Bird said. She also called the sport's explosion in popularity "disorienting" in an exchange with Rapinoe, with whom she's starting a new podcast.

The big picture: This was the resounding sentiment from current and former players, coaches and fans in Phoenix this week.

• "I guess the misconception is that we just started getting great," University of South Carolina women's basketball coach Dawn Staley said Friday during a panel discussion at Tap That Downtown. "The league's been great for 28 years. … it just did not happen overnight."
• She said female athletes are understandably skeptical of the organizations and brands that are swooping in now to offer sponsorships.
• "You should have jumped on board a long time ago," Staley said.

Zoom in: The Phoenix Mercury ownership got a chance to show off its long-term investment in the team by debuting a new $100 million practice facility last week, fit with a freestanding underwater treadmill, an indoor and outdoor turf training area and two courts named for All-Star Diana Taurasi.

• "I hope everyone sees it and goes how do we invest and do it right for the women. Any business you have to invest in it to grow," Mercury and Suns owner Mat Ishbia told the Associated Press .