#pls feel free to chime in if I got anything wrong in the comments lol

[captainmartin20]

I have a question. Since the fever are considered one of the worst team in the league why is Caitlin on the team?Is she not supposed to be one of the greatest. I’m new to basketball and I can’t understand how Kate who next to Caitlin isn’t seen as popular or as “good” is on the best team in the league and the Caitlin on the team that is worst.

Hello, anon!

Welcome to basketball btw!

I’m fairly new here too, but I’ll try to explain it as best as i can.

So after college, players who want to go pro are probably looking to get into the wnba. To get into the wnba, players need a team and in order to do that, they need to enter their names into the draft.

The draft is basically where all the teams in the league come together and select the players they want to come play for their team. Not every player that enters their name into the draft is guaranteed a spot on a team (hence why there are calls for an expansion of the wnba = more teams, less players being cut)

In the draft, there are three rounds with 12 picks per round. The order that teams get to make their picks is based on performance from last season, with the worst teams going first and the best going last.

The first four picks in the first round are determined by the draft lottery (the four teams that missed the 2023 playoffs: the Indiana Fever, Los Angeles Sparks, Phoenix Mercury, and Seattle Storm).

Since Fever preformed less than ideal last season, they had the best odds to land the No. 1 pick.

Here’s a fun little stat:

Since Fever got the highest odds, they had the highest chance to get selected through the lottery. Their name was called and they got the no.1 pick this season (and last season as well!).

Hence, why they managed to select the highly sought out player, Caitlin Clark, for their team.

As for the two-time defending champion, Las Vegas Aces, their turn to pick was further down the line. They ended up picking during the second round of the draft— selecting Fair, Martin, and Kitley (16th pick, 18th pick and 24th pick respectively)

I guess the advantage of having this draft system is so one team isn’t hoarding all the best players, and lower ranked teams get a chance to bring more talent to their roster in time for the upcoming season.

————————

Some links and articles that you might find useful in case I didn’t explain it properly lol:

WNBA 2024 Picks by Round

WNBA Draft lottery, explained: How Fever got opportunity to select Caitlin Clark

How does WNBA draft work? Closer look at rules and eligibility

[loneveenas]

whispering into the night | 7

pairing: kenhina words: 2219 rating: t

total words: 7922 | previous chapters on ao3

note: yes this is chapter seven, which i posted to my ao3 a month ago. i’m close to updating the final chapter so i wanted to post this before hand. you can find the other chapters on my ao3

ao3 | mlist

“Hellooooo guys,” Shouyou yells into the camera. “So good to be back in front of the camera with Kodzuken!” He excitedly waves into the camera. He tilts his head to look at Kenma, who’s sitting next to him, feeling a little shy.

Shouyou nudges Kenma in his sides. It almost seems like Shouyou’s the one with the popular channel

“Hello.” Kenma continues to be shy and Shouyou giggles. “I brought Sho with me today. As you can see.”

Shouyou notices Kenma is very stiff today. He is hesitant if he should grab Kenma’s hand under the table. But it’s resting on Kenma’s thigh and Shouyou doesn’t know if he can go there.

Kenma found out about the video. It was bound to happen. It’s not like Shouyou could have hidden forever, the channel being Kenma’s and all—and the video getting a million views in 24 hours. The fans apparently couldn’t get enough of it. It was only a five minute video, but it exposed Kenma so much that he hadn’t talked about it to Shouyou at all. Except for Kenma sending Shouyou a text with “I can’t believe you’d expose me like that”. Shouyou was hurt. But it had been his own fault. And expose? Would that mean more than Shouyou had previously thought? Except he couldn’t bring it up right then, because Kenma would ignore even his simple ‘Hi’ and ‘Hello’ texts. Kenma never took down the video, though.

Today, luckily, Kenma called Shouyou again. Shouyou’s heart exploded when he got the call and rushed over to his place immediately.

“We’re doing a live Q&A session today,” Kenma said. “So if you’ve got questions, start sending them our way in the chatbox, and we’ll see what we can answer.”

“We are going to try and answer a lot of them!” Shouyou announced happily. His smile hasn’t died down yet and he hopes Kenma notices. “So start sending them in!”

They stare at the screen for a good minute. Shouyou is kind of well-aware that Kenma is sitting next to him. He notices from the screen that Kenma is barely sitting in front of the screen, and that it’s all of Shouyou’s body that is taking up two-third of the screen. He scoots to the right a little, tugging onto Kenma’s shirt, signaling that he can move a little more to the middle of the screen. Kenma simply moves along.

Shouyou moves his eyes back to the screen and smiles as he sees the comments welcoming them. A couple of the comments are also already sending in questions that they want to know.

—sho-kun so good to see you again!! —i missed you both!!!! —Kodzuken spare us a smile please. —say, Sho, would you like to be famous? —what’s you guys’ favorite holiday: Beach, Mountain, City? —Last film you watched? —first ride to go to in a theme park? —have you guys ever been to Disney World?

“Woah,” Kenma says.

“That’s a lot of questions already, you guys!” Shouyou comments, giggling and not stopping to read.

—which of you two is the laziest? —What are your shoe sizes? —who is the better dancer —Italian or Mexican food?

Shouyou can’t help but see the questions pop up that ask them… more private things… if Shouyou can call it that. It makes him uncomfortable.

—are you guys dating yet?? —please tell me you guys are dating. —I NEED THIS INFORMATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! —sho-kun we all know you like kenma and he likes you —just say yes to dating already ffs

“Okay, okay,” Kenma says, “calm down. Let’s start answering a couple first.”

“Yes!” Shouyou chimes in, trying his best to ignore those comments.

“Sho, this one’s for you.” Kenma moves a little closer to the screen to read better. “Sho-kun, it reads, how long does it take you to get your hair like that?” Kenma turns to Shouyou, waiting for an answer.

Shouyou laughs. “None! If I use a comb or a brush it will get super fluffy and that’s not what I want. So, I don’t do anything about it!” he answers with a bright smile.

—THAT’S SO CUTE —i wish my hair worked that way —sho-kun so cute uwu

“Kodzuken!” Shouyou says after reading a question. “This one asks what your first job was.”

“My first job?” Kenma moves his eyes away from the camera, thinking. “My first job… I don’t really worked somewhere… I started this channel right after high school graduation…”

“That’s so cool!” Shouyou comments. “I didn’t know that. So cool,” Shouyou repeats.

“Sho, this persons wants to know what your dream job is.”  

“My dream job, huh…” Shouyou starts grinning and Kenma looks at him, questioningly. “I don’t think even you know what my dream job is, Kodzuken.” Kenma’s eyes widen and he opens his mouth slightly, thinking he can immediately answer, but he closes his mouth as quickly as he had opened it. “Do you?” Shouyou asks him again.

“I… don’t think I do.” Kenma doesn’t know what face to make… He doesn’t know his dream job and Shouyou is laughing at Kenma’s cute reaction.

Shouyou moves to the camera. “What do you think my dream job is? Tell us in the comments and the side who guesses first can get a Sho-special!” Shouyou laughs softly. He doesn’t know yet what the Sho-special will be, but he’ll think of something.

While Kenma puts on his thinking face, Shouyou turns to scroll through the comments.

—sho-kun so cute www —i want to know what the sho-special is —Sho’s dream job is probably something in an office — Sho!! I bet you’d want to be a teacher! —@ that person saying Sho would work in a office, ur dead wrong www —sports player —social worker??????? —swimmer as they do in free!! that would be cool —mangaka… no i can’t see it —sports……. —NO A POLICE OFFICER —the sports comment makes me wonder too —yeah look at his biceps —sho’s biceps are unreal —wwww kodzuken could take some lessons from sho

Shouyou laughs loudly. Kenma looks up from his thoughts and Shouyou points at the last comment. Kenma laughs softly too as his eyes go from Shouyou’s biceps to Kenma’s biceps. Yup, Shouyou’s were at least twice the size of Kenma’s.

At least.

Shouyou looks back at the comments. There’s one particularly comment that catches his eyes and that he can’t let go. That’s funny, he thinks.

“Someone came very close just now,” he mentions, eyeing Kenma’s reaction and the comments at the same time. Kenma’s eyes widen and he pushes his chair closer to the screen. He starts scrolling up and down the comment section. His squinty eyes make Shouyou laugh: he probably can’t find the answer.

“Sho, I can’t find it. None of these seem like something you would want to have as a dream job…” Kenma says, his eyes still plastered to the screen.

“I didn’t say the exact answer is on there, I just said that one of them came really close,” Shouyou replies, a little mocking towards Kenma.

Kenma huffs. “That’s unfair.” A little pout formed its way to its mouth.

“Haha! It’s not unfair. I’ll tell you later. Maybe,” he adds after a short stop when Kenma looked up at him, with an even bigger pout. “Anyways!” Shouyou wants to continue. A different question caught his eyes just now and he can’t wait to hear Shouyou’s answer.

“Anyways what?”

“I saw a question I want you to answer.”

“What is it.”

“Kodzuken, tell me and the viewers. What is your favorite game?”

Shouyou looks at Kenma as his face becomes pale. His frown becomes very deep and Shouyou immediately thinks back to that time. Kenma’s face is painted the exact same way as the secret-not-so-secret-anymore video that he took of an asleep Kenma. Just like that time, Kenma is muttering words that sound like “what is my favorite game?” but not in a complete sentence at all. Shouyou laughs loudly.

“It’s okay, Kodzuken, you can stop now,” Shouyou says, laughing with his hand in front of his mouth. “It’s okay, let’s not do this you to another time.”

A couple comments on the screen tell him there are people who haven’t seen the video yet, and other comments going wild to the soft reference Shouyou made just now. Kenma’s frown tells Shouyou he isn’t done thinking yet and Shouyou has to move closer to him to forcibly remove his hands from his hair and stop the frowning. “If you keep on frowning you’re going to get those ugly lines in your cute forehead, Kodzuken.” Shouyou smiles softly at the boy in front of him, who looks up shockingly.

“What did you say just now?”

“You’re going to get ugly frown lines in your forehead if you keep up frowning this deep,” Shouyou repeats.

“Oh.”

Kenma eyes him and Shouyou is confused. Had he said something odd just now? He doesn’t think he did. Shouyou moves back to the big screen in front of them and reads a couple more comments that are directed at him out loud and answers them.

Kenma is silent.

He doesn’t see Kenma staring at him, but he can definitely feel his eyes burning in his back. Shouyou tries to ignore it, but it’s nearly impossible to do so. He just wants to turn around, face Kenma, and embrace him in the biggest hug he can. But he can’t. Because they are currently live. And that is the only reason, Shouyou tells himself.

Shouyou leans back after answering around twenty quick questions by himself and makes sure he can share the screen with Kenma again.

“I’m hungry,” Shouyou mentions. “What should we eat tonight?”

—ahh are you guys going to eat together? —i wish sho would cook for me —bet sho is the better cook lol

Shouyou laughs at the comments. “I’m probably only the better cook, because Kodzuken only stays behind his computer twenty-four seven.”

—they would be so cute, cooking together —ugh dream couple —cant they stop being so unbearably cute —cute ahhhhhhhh —blushy kodzuken again pls —sho-kun dream husband

Shouyou can’t help but feel uncomfortable again. He looks at Kenma, but he invested himself in a detail with his Switch.

“Guys! Send us some more Q&A questions,” Shouyou asks of the crowd, and it makes Kenma focus his thoughts back to the camera. He probably got a little distracted just now, and Shouyou has to withhold a giggle.

“Yes. Shoot.” Kenma raises his knees to rest his chin on them.

So cute.

The new comments are innocent at first.

—who is the bigger foodie —Favorite cafe in Tokyo? —which animal do you want to be? —any weird habits you guys have? —Last film you watched (together)? —kodzuken what’s the color of your eyes hihi —i still want to Know what sho’s dream job is —kodzuken when are you going back to black hair —favorite childhood memory please.

And Shouyou laughs at them. Just as he finally wants to answer the ‘dream job’ question, his eyes catch… more uncomfortable questions. And not just questions.

—when did you start dating —who kissed first —kisssssss —Say I love you to each other please. —when did you start sleeping together —share a kiss come on —come on. stop pretending you guys are just friends. —No need to hide any longer <3 —know we ship you guys!! —kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss —the act is over we know you guys ain’t ‘just friends’ —act lovey dovey please. —come out already

The last few comments made Shouyou swallow loudly. He blinks a few times and doesn’t know how to respond. He wants to say something, anything, but words aren’t coming out.

Kenma speaks up before he can say anything. “I think it’s time to end the live. Good talking to you all again. See you next time.” Kenma’s voice isn’t his usual monotone voice. It’s even more low and flat and Shouyou barely recognizes him. He watches Kenma closely as he shuts down the live, shuts down his computer and makes his way to leave the room.

“Kenma!” Shouyou calls. He stands up to rush after Kenma, who already passed the door. “Kenma…"

“Shouyou,” Kenma interrupts anything Shouyou wants or wanted to say.

“Yes?” he answers, hesitating, afraid of what Kenma is going to say.

“I think it’s better for you to go home now, instead of staying over for dinner.”

Shouyou can’t see Kenma’s expression, but his voice said enough.

“Oh.”

“Sorry.”

“No… No. It’s okay. Really.”

Kenma watches Shouyou as he packs his things together, ready to leave. He leads him to his front door and wants to apologize again, but Shouyou stops him.

“It’s okay, Kenma. Don’t apologize.”

He sets his foot outside the door and right as he wants to walk away, he turns around one more time.

“It was pro-volleyballer, by the way,” Shouyou mutters. “My dream job.”

Kenma laughs, his face smushed between the doorway. He looks cute. “That’s… How could I not have guessed that. That’s so typically you.”

“Let’s talk about it another time, okay?” Shouyou laughs, too. His eyes are squinted at Kenma and he tries to hide his tears.

He quickly walks away.