feature image of Diana Taurasi by Christian Petersen/Getty Images via Getty Images
With just two and a half minutes left in the Phoenix Mercury’s opening round playoff game against the Minnesota Lynx, Diana Taurasi took her spot on the bench. It felt fitting, considering the arc of her career, that she’d foul out, picking up a technical foul along the way. She’d exit to a standing ovation from the opposing squad and their fans. Few players have given the Lynx more headaches (or hilarity) over the years and yet, in what might have been Taurasi’s final professional game, chants of “one more year” echoed through the arena. Everyone understood the magnitude of the moment: One of the greatest players to ever play the game, the most prolific scorer in WNBA history, may have just played her final game.
A standing ovation for Diana Taurasi in the Target Center 👏 pic.twitter.com/JzQxpEbQYa
— WNBA (@WNBA) September 26, 2024
For a second, Taurasi seemed to take in the moment, but when it looked like her emotions might get the best of her, she shifted back into competitor mode, directing her teammates from her spot on the bench. It was too late by that point — led by a record-setting performance from Napheesa Collier, the Lynx had the game well in hand — but it was all she could do to stave off an uncertain future. After the game, a rapt audience waited for Taurasi to join her coach and teammates at the podium in the post-game press conference but she never showed. One more chance to keep the future at bay.
But earlier this year, the future came calling. It was the start of the new year, the time that Taurasi would usually throw herself into training, preparing for the start of a new WNBA season. For years, it seemed like Taurasi’s off-season dogged preparation allowed her to outrun Father Time, but this time was different: She led a different life now. Even without basketball, she was full and happy.
“I just didn’t have it in me,” Taurasi admitted an interview with Time magazine. “That was pretty much when I knew it was time to walk away.”
And just like that, the career of, perhaps, the greatest women’s basketball player of all time was over. The resume is unmatched: six Olympic gold medals, six Euroleague Championships, three WNBA titles, and three NCAA Championships. The individual accolades are too many to name but, simply put, she is among the most decorated athletes in history. Lately, there’s been a rush to confer greatness on some, to anoint players as the chosen one before they’ve done anything to earn the title, but not DT: she has earned every plaudit sent her way. One day, Taurasi’s individual achievements may be eclipsed — someone will score more than Taurasi’s 10,646 points or win more championships or MVPs — but no one will do it all. Diana Taurasi will remain a singular figure in women’s basketball.
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA – SEPTEMBER 25: Diana Taurasi #3 of the Phoenix Mercury jogs up the court in the second quarter in Game Two of Round One of the WNBA Playoffs against the Minnesota Lynx at Target Center on September 25, 2024 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
Honestly, it’s hard to imagine the game without Taurasi. The WNBA has existed for 28 years, and Taurasi has a been a fixture for 20 of them. When Taurasi came onto the scene, America had certain expectations of female athletes: they wanted the bright and cheery All-American girl. In short, they wanted exactly what Sue Bird molded herself into. But Diana Taurasi steadfastly refused to be anything other than exactly who she was. America wanted a demure female athlete who reacted to wins and losses with the same grace and, instead, Taurasi gave us an ultra-competitive, arrogant, demonstrative hooper who loved winning and hated losing with equal fervor. She redefined what it meant to be a female athlete.
Taurasi didn’t seem to mind being the on-court asshole — by all accounts, she’s a kind and generous person off the court — and relished the chorus of boos that’d greet her in opposing arenas. No one was safe from Diana Taurasi. Not refs — who she promised to meet in the lobby after a call didn’t go her way — not arena doors, and certainly not other WNBA players. She regularly tops WNBA player surveys of the league’s #1 trash talker. In the week since announcing her retirement, we’ve heard one WNBA player after the next recount their “Welcome to the W” moment, courtesy of Diana Taurasi.
@unrivaled Diana Taurasi is UNRIVALED 🥹 #goat #dianataurasi ♬ original sound – Unrivaled Basketball
“My rookie season, I have the daunting task of guarding Diana Taurasi,” Connecticut Sun guard Natasha Cloud recalled. “Running down in transition, she gets a pass, shoots a three, punches me in my face as I’m contesting. They called the foul on me, as I’m on the ground, covering my face.”
Former WNBA journeyman, Layshia Clarendon, also found themselves guarding Taurasi early in their career. As the pair waited for the ball to be inbounded, Taurasi chatted Clarendon up. She recalled that Clarendon was from San Bernardino, not too far away from where Taurasi had grown up in Chino. Taurasi was charming and charismatic but when the whistle blew, she immediately flipped into competitive mode: Clarendon recalled Taurasi hooked her arm and drew the foul.
News of Taurasi’s retirement wasn’t entirely a surprise, of course. During their final home game of the season, the Phoenix Mercury paid tribute to their franchise player’s unmatched career with a tribute called “If This Is It.” And though Taurasi had been quiet since the season ended, the off-season moves of longtime Phoenix mainstays Brittney Griner to Atlanta and Sophie Cunningham to Indiana strongly signaled Taurasi’s future. I couldn’t imagine either Griner nor Cunningham leaving the Mercury if Taurasi was going to return to the court.
It is, perhaps, fitting that Taurasi chooses to leave the stage at this moment, with little pomp and circumstance. I’m not sure Taurasi ever wanted to be famous; she just wanted to be great and whatever fame came with that, she accepted begrudgingly. Her off-seasons spent in Turkey and Russia were just as much about the anonymity that living in a country where you don’t speak the language provided as it was about making money and growing her game. Her annual Final Four show with Sue Bird notwithstanding, Taurasi eschews the spotlight. Taurasi never wanted to be the story; she wanted her game to be the story, the game to be the story. There’s no greater evidence of that fact than the way she revealed her relationship with her former teammate, Penny Taylor. In 2017, Taurasi announced publicly that she was gay, had been dating Taylor for years, and now they were married in one fell swoop…as if she could not bear the spotlight for even a second longer.
“That was our special thing,” Taurasi said at the time. “We never kept it secret, we just didn’t want that to be an issue ever. We knew when we walked through those doors, it was time to put work in and be professional.”
It’s hard to imagine someone that adverse to the spotlight existing in this new era of women’s basketball. Not with so many eyeballs on the players, not with so much focus on the personalities of the players, not when the game isn’t the center of the conversation…and so, Diana Taurasi steps off the stage. Because of the work she’s done, she leaves the game infinitely better than she found it. She leaves the game to a class of young women who, for their entire lives, have looked to her example. They may never match her resume but may they always aspire to her greatness and do so, like Taurasi did, unapologetically.
