Diana Taurasi is one of the most unique players in basketball history. When you are named “White Mamba” by the great Kobe Bryant, who never gave a compliment that wasn’t earned, then your place in hoops history is already cemented.
The 42-year-old announced her retirement from a game she helped elevate.
“Mentally and physically, I’m just full,” Taurasi told Time. “That’s probably the best way I can describe it. I’m full and I’m happy.”
WNBA’s All-Time Leading Scorer Retires
For 20 seasons Taurasi carried the WNBA on her back. The WNBA launched in 1997 with much fanfare off the heels of Team USA captivating the world with a gold medal performance at the 1996 Olympics.
There was finally a bona fide pro league for women in America. After the novelty began to wear off — around the time the Houston Comets won their fourth straight WNBA title in 2000 — the league ushered in a new age of women’s hoop stars and Geno Auriemma’s UConn team fueled the new league’s talent pipeline year after year, producing iconic WNBA figures such as Nykesha Sales, Rebecca Logo, Sue Bird, Tina Charles and of course the sharp-shooting scoring machine with her hair in a bun known as Diana Taurasi.
RELATED: Diana Taurasi Defies Time | Drops 37 Points At 39 Years Old
Taurasi bum rushed the WNBA in 2004, winning Rookie of the Year and finishing third in the MVP voting. In 20 seasons she finished Top 10 in the MVP voting 13 times.
Stat Facts On Diana Taurasi ‘AKA’ White Mamba:
- Olympic gold medals … 6 (most in Olympic basketball)
- NCAA championships … 3
- WNBA championships … 3
- Career points … 10,646 (ranks first in WNBA)
- All-WNBA selections … 14 (first in WNBA)
- WNBA All-Star selections … 11 (second in WNBA)
- Career 3-pointers made … 1,447 (first in WNBA)
- Field goals made … 3,341 (first in WNBA)
- Scoring titles … 5 (first in WNBA)
- Seasons played … 20 (first in WNBA)
- Career Assists … 2,394 (fourth in WNBA)
- Steals … 518 (18th in WNBA)
Taurasi’s WNBA Sendoff Lacked The Pomp and Circumstance Befitting Of Hoops Legend
The numbers and accolades speak for themselves. But did Taurasi get the proper sendoff during her last season in the NBA? When is the last time a player of this magnitude left the game with such little pomp and circumstance?
She should have been praised in every WNBA arena, as the OG was part of the lifeline of the league, a global ambassador for women’s sports helping it grow incrementally on the world stage, prior to this recent explosion in women’s hoops driven by Caitlin Clark and others.
Basketball fans who have just started acknowledging the WNBA as a real viable product in sports entertainment probably don’t understand how much Taurasi has meant to women’s basketball.
Former teammate Shea Ralph recently called her, “the best player that’s ever played our sport.”
On the other hand, Whoopi Goldberg couldn’t even pronounce her name right when introducing the icon on “The View”.
Diana Taurasi Was Caitlin Clark Before Cailtin Clark: Retired At The Worst Possible Time
The Phoenix Mercury star was Caitlin Clark before Caitlin Clark when she was the first overall pick in the 2004 WNBA draft. The three-time WNBA champion with the Mercury (in 2007, 2009, and 2014), has a WNBA MVP award and two WNBA Finals MVP Awards.
For good measure, Taurasi is a six-time Olympic gold medalist (2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020) with five WNBA scoring titles and three FIBA World Cups.
Her only mistake was retiring during the season that Cailtin Clark took over the world of sports and Angel Reese made crossover WNBA branding a real thing.
With the world so captivated by the white girl from Iowa who could ball with the Black girls of the WNBA at the highest levels, they forgot about one who already proved it long ago. She set the stage for Clark’s ascension to become a reality.
Taurasi’s legend should have been celebrated more. She had the career people only dream that Cailtin Clark will have. She did it without the social media hype and the willingness of the media to make WNBA players the centerpiece of conversation.
Taurasi Got Caught In The Clark Madness
Two important factors contributed to Taurasi’s unceremonious departure from a league she helped prepare for the arrival of Clark.
Taurasi has been a legendary Olympic player and historic representative for Team USA hoops. Similarly to LeBron James, she has spanned several decades and played at a high level into her 40s while mentoring a generation of newcomers and setting an example of what true professionalism is.
Taurasi’s Finals Olympic Caught In Clark Web
Her contributions to the league can’t be overstated. Fans wanted Clark on the Olympic Team, and the media joined them in bashing Team USA when they didn’t throw Clark on a team that was already established. More important, this was Taurasi’s final Olympic run, and the legend deserved to go out on top just like LeBron James did this year with the men’s team.
The animosity of casual hoops fans now interested in women’s hoops toward the team for not adding Clark dampened the farewell that Taurasi was supposed to receive and actually made her a target of some people who felt she should have been left off the team in favor of Clark.
Taurasi Warning To Clark Made Her A Villain Of Clarkmania
Also, Taurasi’s comments warning Clark about the challenges she would face in the WNBA while Clark was in college playing for a national championship, didn’t go over well with the growing legion of Clark fans.
“Reality is coming,” Taurasi warned, flanked by her former UConn teammate Sue Bird during an episode of their “Bird & Taurasi Show” in April of 2024. “There’s levels to this thing. … You look superhuman playing against some 18-year-olds, but you’re going to come play with some grown women that been playing professional basketball for a long time.
Jason Whitlock, a controversial sports commentator, who is a huge Clark fan, downplayed Taurasi’s legacy and suggested that Taurasi’s retirement wouldn’t even be a headline without Clark’s presence.
There are plenty of hoops people who believe the rise of CC has already eclipsed one of the game’s all-time greats
“ESPN tried to make Diana Taurasi’s retirement a big deal. This would’ve never been treated as major news until Caitlin Clark. As she exits, I hope she thanks Clark for the great year of relevancy,” Whitlock posted on X. His post was accompanied by a clip from his podcast, where he elaborated on his stance.
“If there was no Caitlin Clark, this would not be major news. Think of all the players that have retired from the WNBA—never been treated as major news until Caitlin Clark. And so Diana Taurasi, who welcomed Caitlin Clark to the WNBA saying, ‘She’s got a lot to learn, and it’s going to be a rough start,’ was part of the group that had a little animus toward her,” Whitlock said. “Caitlin Clark actually has made her retirement relevant and newsworthy. So as she exits the stage, I hope that she remembers to thank Caitlin Clark for that one year of relevancy.”
Geno Auriemma Says Career of Taurasi “Can’t Be Defined With A Quote”
Sure, there are newjack fans, shock jocks and blowhards who only care about stirring the pot and labeling pre-Clark WNBA as irrelevant. In Taurasi’s case, they are all very wrong. The excitement for Clark is great for the game, but she is not the first of her kind. She’s the evolution of blueprint players such as Taurasi.
“It’s hard to put into words, it really is, what this means. When someone’s defined the game, when someone’s had such an impact on so many people and so many places. You can’t define it with a quote,” said Auriemma, who won three straight NCAA titles with Taurasi at the helm. “It’s a life that is a novel, it’s a movie, it’s a miniseries, it’s a saga. It’s the life of an extraordinary person who, I think, had as much to do with changing women’s basketball as anyone who’s ever played the game.”
Somehow it didn’t seem like she got the sendoff that she earned, proving that the pages of life and sports turn quickly, and in mainstream media you are forgotten even quicker.
