There is no easy way to define the career of Diana Taurasi, who announced her official retirement from the WNBA on Tuesday after 20 seasons.
Historic? Obviously.
Transformational? Without question.
The Greatest of All Time?
Taurasi won’t say it, but she’ll let everyone else.
“I have a resume,” Taurasi told TIME in an exclusive interview announcing her retirement. “It’s not up to me to grade it.”
Taurasi is the greatest player in WNBA history. Her stats say as much.
No one in WNBA history has scored more points than she has. She leads the league in three-pointers made and is fourth All-Time in assists. She’s a three-time WNBA champion, winning all of them with the Mercury who drafted her out of UConn with the No. 1 pick in 2004. She is a league MVP and a two-time Finals MVP.
On top of all of this, her overseas resume could stand alone and provide enough supporting evidence for her case as the GOAT. She has six Euroleague titles, is a three-time Euroleague MVP and a three-time Russian League Player of the year. She is the only basketball player, man or woman, to win six Olympic gold medals.
One of the single most defining qualities of Taurasi’s game is her competitiveness. It’s the seed from which all of her success has derived and the quality that’s made her both deeply respected and feared.
Every player in the league has a Taurasi story detailing her notorious trash talking and welcome to the league moments, which she relished doling out.
Taurasi’s legacy in Chicago is highlighted by two WNBA Finals.
In 2014, Taurasi’s Mercury — making their third Finals appearance — swept the Sky, who were making their first, in three games. Seven years later, the Sky handed the Mercury their first Finals loss, resulting in another lasting Taurasi memory.
A door at Wintrust Arena was left cracked through the middle after Taurasi reportedly slammed it out of frustration. The Mercury declined to attend postgame media availability following their Finals loss, but when Taurasi was asked about the incident during exit interviews a week later, she said simply, “There were a lot of doors in there.”
The Sky brought the door to their championship celebration as a token of pride.
Of Taurasi’s record 10,646 career points, 678 were scored against the Sky in 34 regular season games. She had a 23-11 regular-season record against the Sky and was 4-3 against them in the playoffs.
For 20 seasons, Taurasi served as the face of not just the WNBA but women’s basketball. Although she declined to participate in a farewell tour in 2024, her unofficial retirement loomed over the league.
“If this is it,” was the unofficial slogan of the Mercury as their 19-21 season came to an end last year. In her final regular season game on Sept. 19, Taurasi addressed the crowd.
“If it is the last time, it felt like the first time,” Taurasi told everyone in attendance at the Footprint Center.
Tuesday, the collective basketball world addressed Taurasi, expressing their gratitude for her unparalleled contributions to the game.
The term generational is used so often to describe athletes these days that the term’s meaning has lost all value. But not when it’s used to tell the tale of Taurasi’s talents. Only now, in her absence, will the door open for another talent to be described as generational and for it to be true.