Diana, the people's GOAT
Plus: Join me at Scuppernog Books in Greensboro this Saturday at 6pm ET!!
Hi, friends. I hope you are all doing well! It’s March, and the Power Plays calendar is busier than it has ever been! This week we’ve got the ACC women’s basketball tournament in my hometown of Greensboro, NC and the PWHL takeover game in Raleigh, NC, between the Ottawa Charge and Minnesota Frost, plus a fancy season kickoff party with the NC Courage. If you have any coverage requests for those games or teams or events, let me know!
But I think the thing I’m *most* excited about this week is happening at Scuppernog Books in Greensboro, NC, on Saturday, March 8 at 6:00pm ET.
I’ll be hosting a conversation with Susan Shackelford to talk about the groundbreaking book she co-authored with Pamela Grundy, “Shattering the Glass: The Remarkable History of Women’s Basketball.” This book was originally published in 2005, but last month, Shackelford and Grundy released a revised edition that includes the last 20 years of history-making moments in the sport!! It is a foundational text for all women’s basketball fans, and it’s such an honor to get to host this talk.
I realize I’m biased, but truly this is a must-attend event for anyone who happens to be in town for the ACC women’s basketball tournament. The semifinals are on Saturday at noon and 2:30pm ET, so there will be plenty of time to get from the Coliseum to the book store!
Okay, now I need to dump out some of my Diana Taurasi feelings.
1. Diana Taurasi is retiring, and I am super emotional about it.
Last week, Diana Taurasi officially announced her retirement from basketball. This is not a surprise; she was noncommittal about her future all last season, prompting the Phoenix Mercury to run a campaign, “If this is it,” a way to celebrate her legacy and leave the door open for a return in 2025, if she so chose. But, alas, she chose differently. And that makes perfect sense. Taurasi is 42 years old and has played 20 full seasons in the WNBA. That’s a lot.
“Mentally and physically, I’m just full,” Taurasi told Sean Gregory of Time Magazine. “That’s probably the best way I can describe it. I’m full and I’m happy.”
So Taurasi, it seems, is content with her decision and her life. Which I love! That is the goal for us all.
But friends? I’m really, really sad about this, much sadder than I expected to be. Taurasi is an icon, an institution, a force of nature. She is women’s basketball. I haven’t known women’s basketball fandom without her, and millions upon millions of other people can say the same. I’m sad that we’re not going to see any more of her nonononono-YES three pointers, her bully-ball drives to the basket, her laughably audacious crossovers. I’m sad that we’re done with her irreverent post-match press conferences, her mischievous smiles at opposing fans, and her infamous tech-drawing antics.
I think that, more than anything, I’m sad that the new fans who are streaming into the game won’t know what it’s like to have Taurasi as both a heel and heroine in the WNBA universe. Her unapologetic audacity carried women’s basketball through the best and worst times the sport has ever seen.
Over the past two decades, different marketers and commissioners and sponsors have come in and out of the WNBA’s orbit trying to make it more mainstream by playing into heteronormative gender stereotypes, glamming things up, trying to appeal to the male gaze. There are phenomenal players who leaned into that, and I don’t blame them in the slightest — you can be hyper feminine and straight and love modeling and be a great women’s basketball player! If that’s genuinely who you are, go for it!
But we’ve been lucky to have Taurasi during these times, someone who didn’t give a damn about any of that stuff. Even the most corporate, conservative camps couldn’t conceive of forcing her to conform to a mold; it would have been an exercise in futility. With Taurasi, it’s never been about social media or magazine spreads or talk show appearances or even accolades; it’s about a pure, almost child-like love of the game. Through all of the turbulence of leadership changes, franchises folding, media backlash, and sponsor de-investment, Taurasi helped anchor women’s basketball in the basketball, and was able to transcend the sport despite her avoidance of the “other” because she was simply too competitive, too electric, and too talented to be denied, and the league, the sport, and the world at large, are so much better for it.
Fuck. I miss her already.
2. Putting Taurasi’s greatness into context.
Regular readers of this newsletter will know that I firmly believe that sports are about more than just statistics. But sometimes the statistics tell quite a story. Here’s a look at Taurasi’s career, by the numbers:
She is the leading scorer in WNBA history, with 10,646 points. (Tina Thompson is No. 2 on the list with 7,696 points.)
She has the most three pointers in WNBA history, with 1,446. (Sue Bird is No. 2 with 1,001.)
She’s second all-time in minutes played, behind Sue Bird; second in field goals made; and fourth in assists.
She is a three-time WNBA champion; three-time NCAA champion; six-time Euroleague champion; six-time Olympic champion; and three-time World Cup champion.
She made 14 all-WNBA teams (10 first teams, four second teams), and 11 All-Star teams. (Note that the WNBA used to not hold All-Star games or even name All Stars during Olympic years.)
She was the WNBA MVP in 2009; a two-time WNBA finals MVP; three-time Euroleague MVP; three-time Russian player of the year; and four-time USA Basketball female athlete of the year.
I could keep going!!! Her accomplishments, they are many.
3. I love this Unrivaled compilation of Taurasi moments.
Down in Miami at Unrivaled, the social media team asked players for their Diana Taurasi story, and the results did not disappoint.
Dying at “Is that your sister?” and “Are those Pumas going to make it to the second half?”
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According to the most recent rookie class, Taurasi went soft in her old age. I love that so damn much.
4. Taurasi used to be much, much tougher on rookies.
In one of my previous lives, when I was a Washington Mystics beat reporter in my previous life, Shatori Walker-Kimbrough told me about her on-court introduction to Diana Taurasi. It’s still one of my favorite Taurasi stories.
I have tried to find video of this, but have failed; I will pay real money to someone if they can actually find footage of Taurasi sitting on Walker-Kimbrough’s shoe in 2017.
5. I’m obsessed with this anecdote about Taurasi scorching Draymond Green.
Thank you, Time and Sean Gregory, for bringing us this story:
During the 2016 Rio Olympics, the women’s and men’s U.S. basketball teams again stayed on a cruise ship. Players from both teams, a group of NBA and WNBA stars, were sitting around one night, having a few laughs, a few drinks, and talking some serious smack, as is the habit of super competitive and successful athletes. Draymond Green, a noted NBA rabble-rouser known more for his defensive instincts, physicality, passing skills, and penchant for drawing technical fouls and suspensions than his shooting and scoring ability, was going on about something. Taurasi said, “Hey, Draymond, how does it feel to be the only person in this room who’s never been double-teamed?”
Iconic.
6. Also, LMAO at this story about Taurasi going after Geno during a World Cup game.
This is also from the Time profile, which I hope you have read in full by now.
Taurasi also won three World Cups, in 2010, 2014 and 2018. In the 2010 World Cup final in the Czech Republic, the U.S. faced the home team in the gold-medal game, and the Americans couldn’t quite shake off the Czechs. At one point Auriemma, the national coach for that tournament, ordered the team to switch from man-to-man into a 2-3 zone. A Czech player hit a shot from the corner. “We inbound the ball, we go down there, Diana stops like 32 feet from the basket and drains a three,” says Auriemma. “She turns around, runs all the way across the court to go past our bench, to look me in the face, in front of the entire Olympic team, and go, ‘Get the f-ck out of this zone.’”
Auriemma started screaming “man, man.” The U.S. won by 20. “And the rest of the guys on the team, the look on their faces,” says Auriemma. “I had to go, ‘Yo, guys, don't get any ideas.’”
7. I’d like to check in on how fabulous Taurasi and her wife, Penny Taylor, looked on their wedding day.
THEY ARE SIMPLY RADIANT.
8. Let’s watch some highlights, shall we?
There are so many compilations, but this is a great place to start.
9. She had the weight of the league on her shoulders from the start.
This Los Angeles Times article from May 21, 2004 gives a glimpse of the hype that surrounded her when she entered the W.
10. There will simply never be another.
I don’t think we talk about the clip below enough, so I’ll leave you here.
Love you all. Talk soon. You’ll be sick of me this week, I hope.