At her blog, Mechelle reflects on the "classy" way the Maloofs handled the end of the Monarchs, the role of independent owners and looks back to a time when there were two women's pro leagues.

The ABL launched first, in the fall of 1996. The WNBA came the following summer, and we had the classic Wal-Mart vs. small chain competition. For the relatively brief period both leagues were in operation at the same time, there were those folks involved who kept insisting utterly inane things such as it was great for women’s hoops players to have two options.