At Age 42, Diana Taurasi Steps Away From The Greatest WNBA Career Of All Time – What’s Next For Her?

Twenty seasons ago, when Diana Taurasi first made her way onto a WNBA court, she had already made a name for herself.

Taurasi has never hidden under the radar, whether in high school or in college at UConn, where she led her team to three straight national titles. Even when women’s basketball was barely a footnote to the men’s game, Taurasi’s spitfire tenacity and spectacular play turned heads.

“I wish I had $1 for every time I heard a guy say, ‘She’s the only reason I would ever watch a women’s basketball game,’” said Taurasi’s college coach Geno Auriemma. “And this was 25 years ago, right? Obviously, we’ve evolved as men. But she had the ability to bring people to the game that otherwise would not think about watching a women’s basketball game.”

When Taurasi entered the league as the number one pick of the Phoenix Mercury, she played on a rookie salary of $40,800. Twenty years later, first overall pick Caitlin Clark signed her rookie contract for around $77,000. There’s still so much work to be done, but as interest in women’s basketball skyrockets, the WNBA has signed a media rights deal for $200 million a year, and at least three expansion teams are on the way, Taurasi’s impact cannot be waved off.

There are her career accolades and awards: she’s the most-awarded Olympic basketball player ever, winning six golds; she’s led the Mercury to three championships; she’s an 11-time WNBA All-Star and 14-time All-WNBA; she’s the league’s all-time points leader (nearly 3,000 more than the runner-up, Tina Charles); and it just keeps going. She also holds the WNBA record for the most technical fouls – no surprise to anyone that knows her.

Her most profound impact, though, was on the people surrounding her – and the little girls watching at home.

“I first saw [Taurasi] play on TV when she was at UConn, I was 10 years old,” Los Angeles Spark Kelsey Plum wrote Wednesday on Instagram. “I’d never seen a woman with that much confidence and swag, fearlessness and just unapologetic competitiveness. That was who I wanted to be.”

Plum is just one of the players who have come out to thank Taurasi, whether for inspiring them, driving them to be better from across the court, or simply being the kind, dynamic, fiery person she’s always been.

“Just seeing her transcend the game, watching little girls want to play like her, her style, her flair, her bravado, you know, her swagger, it’s been an unbelievable treat,” said Team USA teammate LeBron James.

“She’s one of the all-time greatest, and she will leave her mark on the game of basketball the moment she ties those shoes up and throws them over the pole line. It’s been an honor. All love.”

“She can be an a——,” said Sue Bird, the WNBA’s all-time assists leader and Taurasi’s college and Team USA teammate, discussing Taurasi’s self-moniker of a ‘kind a——.’ “She can poke fun at people and this and that.” But off the court, Taurasi will make sure there are no hard feelings, Bird adds. She deals with humans above all.

“The kindness, it oozes,” said Bird. “You go to dinner and it’s a big group, guaranteed she’s gonna pay the check. There are just these ways in which she’s incredibly generous and kind.”

Yes, everyone knows Taurasi. Anyone in the league or around it, even in the NBA, has heard a story of her, can recognize those knee-long basketball shorts that remained as one of her trademarks in the modern era. But she’s looking forward to getting to know a couple people a little better – her children, who, for the first time, she’ll get to see through the entire school year.

She’ll spend time with wife and former Mercury teammate, Penny Taylor, and play “disgruntled assistant mom coach” to their seven-year-old son’s basketball team. She’ll get to watch her daughter, Isla, turn four.

“Mentally and physically, I’m just full,” said Taurasi. “That’s probably the best way I can describe it. I’m full and I’m happy.”

• Share on Facebook
• Tweet
• Submit to Reddit
• Submit to Threads
• Submit to Pinterest
• Share to Pocket

Article by Katherine Manz