From the mailbag:

I'm frustrated by Anne Donovan's comments about WNBA salaries. These players were all educated in something other than basketball. They don't have to put up with the salaries. Besides, their salaries are better than what my niece will be making when she starts as a school teacher next fall, and there are many, many other kids who will leave college and make less as well. I think their salaries are not bad in the grand scheme of things. If the players spend and invest their money wisely, they'll have plenty after a seven year career.

Maybe what Anne is saying is that their salaries are relatively low for professional athletes. That I can agree with, but to say that they have to go overseas to earn a living is ridiculous. Maybe what she should say is that they have to play overseas to make the kind of salary we expect professional athletes to make.

It's always tricky to talk about how much money someone "needs" to make. Almost always, the statement is impliedly relative or conditional. How much do you need if you want to live about the poverty line. How much do you need if you want to live a certain lifestyle in a certain locale. &c.

I don't have any particular view in the abstract about how much WNBA players deserve to make. Nor do I have any particular view about whether professional athletes -- male or female -- deserve to make more than teachers or lawyers or househusbands. Of course WNBA players make far less than their male counterparts, but of course they make far more than a lot of other people.

Median household income in the United States is a bit over $43,000. Median income for nonfamily households is $26,000 -- $21,000 for women and $32,000 for men.

The average WNBA player gets paid about $55,000. It's not great, but most people in this country survive on less. A $55,000 salary puts you in the second quartile of American workers, and in the top couple percent of workers around the world (where over a billion people live on less than a dollar a day).

So no, WNBA salaries aren't bad in the grand scheme of things.

But most WNBA players still need to have other work. Do you know anyone in this country who made $55,000 per year then retired at age 30? No matter how wisely the average W player spends and invests, she'll need to have another source of income at some point. So she'll need to play overseas, or she'll need to have a post-W career.

(I wonder how employable the average player is at the end of her career. If you're 30 or 35 years old and you've been doing nothing but playing women's basketball since college, it's not like Goldman Sachs is gonna be pounding down your door. Staying in basketball, through coaching or broadcasting, is probably not as easy as it sounds for the average, non-star player.)

Does it matter? Most of the rest of us have to work until our 50s or 60s, and most of the rest of us have to work a full year, not just four months. Why should women's basketball players be any different?

To me, it does matter, because it affects the quality of the game.

It's important that women's pro ball succeeds, both for the sake of the game itself and for larger reasons. In order to succeed, the quality of play on the floor needs to be good. Low salaries hurt the quality of play.

Higher salaries would give a greater incentive for young athletes to take up basketball. Higher salaries would also make it easier for current players to devote all of their time and attention to improving their games rather than learning how to be dentists. Higher salaries would make it more likely that everyone would be around for the preseason.

I don't want the WNBA to be populated by spoiled millionaires. And I don't think that the athletic skills possessed by these players are so socially valuable that they're morally entitled to live like queens.

But I hope the W is around in a decade, and I hope the average player makes more than $55,000. I believe that those two hopes are linked.