So what was intriguing about Tuesday's WNBA matchup between the Lynx and Tulsa? Didn't have to scratch my head too much to figure this one out.

Taj McWilliams-Franklin vs. Sheryl Swoopes, two 40-year-old players going against each other for the first time in WNBA history. That's it. I dutifully went to Target Center early, talked to both players -- had to wait for Ch. 9 to drill them first, TV always takes over -- and wrote a story for the first edition. Just had to put in a few details about the game.

But then the game began and Swoopes sat the first quarter. The second quarter. The third. Oh, oh. My story is going to hold up. Coach Nolan Richardson played his other 10 players, but not Swoopes. Was she hurt? She didn't tell me.

So I scrambled hastily and wrote a completely different story, focusing on Lynx forward Rebekkah Brunson and then updated it after the game.

What happened to the MWF (McWilliams-Franklin) and Swoopes story? Read it right below. It never made any paper.

By ROMAN AUGUSTOVIZraugustoviz@startribune.com A little bit of WNBA history was made Tuesday at Target Center.Two 40-year-old basketball players faced each other for the first time in a game in the league's 15th season. For visiting Tulsa, forward Sheryl Swoopes came off the bench. For the Lynx, Taj McWilliams-Franklin started at center.The two had not played against each other in three years because Swoopes has been out of the WNBA since 2008 when she played 29 games for Seattle. The Storm later waived her.In recent years, Swoopes has played in Greece, waiting for a chance to return to the league in which she was one of the original players.McWilliams-Franklin is happy Swoops is back."The [TV] color commentators always want to mention my name [and] 40," McWilliams-Franklin said. "If you listen to the games after -- I am always watching DVDs -- all I hear is, 'Well she is 40 years old.'"To have someone else that is 40, maybe they can spend some of the time about Sheryl's age instead of mine."Not that one of the newest Lynx feels old. Lighter from age 30, yes. Lighter still from 20. "My game is the same," said McWilliams-Franklin, whom the Lynx signed as a free agent on Feb. 18. "I do the same thing in the locker room, I do the same thing on the court and that is why I can stay so long. I don't change up things and try new stuff."The tried, proven, work ethic, I keep it going. That's how I stay in the league and play all these years."This is McWilliams-Franklin's 13th WNBA season. Her career began with Orlando in 1999. The Lynx are her seventh team. She has averaged 11.9 points and seven rebounds and played for one championship team. That was Detroit in 2008.Swoopes has left a bigger mark in the WNBA. She was on the Houston Comets when they won the first four WNBA titles from 1997 to 2000. She was named the league MVP three times, 2000, '02 and '05. "Just watching her play was a great joy afterwards – after they beat us," McWilliams-Franklin said. "You can't appreciate [her] while you are playing." Swoopes refers to basketball as her calling, "not just from an athlete's standpoint, but from a teaching standpoint." "These young ladies that I am here with, it is only our second year," Swoopes said. "And I tell them all the time, we are the underdogs. People don't have a lot of expectations of us.
"But to me the only thing that matters is if we believe in ourselves. It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. And I have a great group of young women that I playing with and I practice against every single day. They keep me motivated. They keep me going."I wanted to go out the way I wanted to go out and just be able to say thank you to the league." Thanks for talking to me Ms. Swoopes, but could you tell your coach to make sure he puts you in the next time the Shock play the Lynx. Maybe I can just re-write this story a little bit and still publish it.