Diana Tauuras says goodbye to the game that helped grow

In recent years, the question had been thrown into Diana Tauurasi of a multitude of ways and words: when would she get away from basketball? Playing in his 40 years, when would he finally hang his shoes?

As he had done in his game for a two and a half decades career in university and professional basketball, he answered these questions with an ingenuity about it. She would do it when she was ready, and the rest of the world would know him at some point later.

In the Olympic Games this summer, where he had made his sixth list of the US team., They asked him once again about an imminent retirement. “Only a woman would have 20 years of experience,” he said, “and is an Achilles heel instead of something treasured.”

There was a seriousness in all his answers, and it was clear that retirement was not something that was ignoring, simply something he still did not feel was his next step. But reality was there. In recent years, he changed his diet and recovery routine. He was open about how much work was needed to stay in the game, and that the work felt as work. But she still loved the game more than almost anything.

When I was on the floor, that was evident.

Therefore fire and fight as they played, few others exuded as much joy as Tauuras. Even in the year 22 in the League, it was right during the placement lines and approached the senior teammates and coaches as if they were a necessary science. From his bun to his shorts to the knee (a style that had long passed his era fashionable), it was impossible not, sometimes, seeing the California boy who had appeared in Storrs, Connecticut, in 2000.

It was there that many met Tauurai for the first time, and now, 25 years later, it is officially time to say goodbye to the Tauurai player.

LEGENDARY.@Phoenixmercury | @Dianataurai pic.twitter.com/brhdwpkyog

– Atlético (@theathletic) February 25, 2025

On Tuesday afternoon, around the moment many people just left work, Taurasi announced that she also ended with the work. An email came to the media members with a series of appointments, a story was executed on time and an announcement was made that Tauuras would appear on Wednesday in “The View”, the popular ABC interview program.

Everything was Piqué Tauurasi, expected but with an unconventional, discreet but obvious element, a little tongue on the cheek, it seems. Much of what he did on the floor was with a wink. She was the best guard who saw a play ahead and knew a little more than everyone else on the floor.

In The time articleTaurasi says he knew he was ready to get away from the game on New Year this year. “Mentally and physically, I’m full,” he said. “That is probably the best way to describe it. I’m full and I’m happy. “

Few have had more complete races in any sport than Tauurasi. She won three WNBA titles, six Olympic gold medals, three NCAA championships and six Euroleague titles. She became the first player in the history of the WNBA to score 10,000 points and perhaps the first to be called for 122 technicians. In the middle, there were individual records and praise, WNBA All-Stars and a MVP season.

As the WNBA number 1 draft selection in 2004, he won $ 40,800 in his rookie season. She leaves a league that has just signed a historical agreement of the rights of the media of $ 2 billion and is in the precipice of a potentially innovative collective bargaining agreement.

She helped build and nurture that growth with her game and the attention she brought to the game. His competitiveness was often unmatched and attracted fans to the game. His amazing ability to make even those who tormented and commented garbage on the floor still loved her, made a must.

“There were moments when I wanted beer? “” The three times there Well, it’s good to see you “, before rubbing it and getting out of a screen to hit a shot. Then Taurasi turned around and wiped Ciruela. There was that game of 2022 storm storm when after forcing a jump ball, Tauurasi and her best friend Sue Bird (in the last season of Bird in the league) they stopped in the painting that disputes each other on possible faults.

Deeper

Ten stories of facing Diana Tauurasi while approaching the career points.

Tauurai’s absence of this next season of the WNBA will feel more than a bit strange. She has been in the League for almost the longest time. Some of the players recruited in this year’s class were born just before Tauosi’s novice debut in Phoenix. His game inspired dozens of children to collect a ball (some of whom ended up playing against her in the league), and its similarity, many assume that the WNBA logo is based on Tauuras with its iconic bun (although it has never been Confirmed, and the marketing company insists that it is not), is rooted in the W brand.

But the bread crumbs that approached this day were there all the time. In the period before his last game at home last season, Mercury promoted shirts and memories that said: “If this is.” There was a video tribute. Although I did not know that it was really everything, there was the feeling that it could be close. Then, this low season, the teammate and close friend of Tauurasi, Brittney Griner, signed with Atlanta’s dream, pointing out a break of the band. It seemed an unlikely movement if Tauuras planned to stay for another year.

His retirement may seem even more a blow because he comes after many other greats of the WNBA who have left the floor for the last time in recent seasons: Bird, Sylvia Fowles, Candace Parker. Now add taurasi to that list. The League is being delivered to a new generation that executes a path paved by the greats, such as Tauurasi. Like others who have helped build legacies and dynasties, these retired stars will not be part of some of the fruits of their work as the game continues to reach new heights.

But, as Taurai said, he leaves because he feels full and happy. At the end of a race that had ups and downs, more injuries we will probably know and at least one broken door, that seems like a victory. That she does it in her terms, she does it perfectly from.

In her first season as a WNBA player, she was selected for the 2004 Olympic list as the youngest player on the team. She asked Cachellor de Van Coach what she needed about her, and he told her that, with veteran players like Dawn Staley in the team, she needed Taurasi to act like the rookie she was, and she agreed. But in his first Olympic game with that team, he appeared with two left shoes. A true rookie movement, and something that could have sent any other player to the United States … if it weren’t Diana.

In his last WNBA season, he welcomed some iconic rookies to the league, players like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. They are part of the new wave of players who have had opportunities that they never had, but who have them, in part, due to how Tauuras helped to grow the game. In the last game that Tauuras played, she committed a foul. Another moment that felt more than appropriate.

She knows that competition will be lost and everything that comes with being a teammate. The League, her teammates and her opponents will certainly miss her as well. He is wishing to go out with his wife, Penny, and take his two children to school. There will not be a long period prior to the season with hours spending hours preparing their mind and body to compete for more than 30 games. Life will be drastically different this summer from what has been in the last two dozen, but is ready for whatever you can see: 20 years in any professional sports league you can certainly prepare athletes for the unknown and unexpected.

So the 20 years could not prepare an athlete is, ultimately, how to say goodbye, which is sometimes the most difficult for an athlete at their level and with its competitive impulse. But as a large part of Tauurai’s career, he achieved an exit that everyone saw coming, but that still surprised us a little surprised. It is his final elbow to the stomach and a wink while running on the floor. Everything feels very target.

(Photo: David Sherman / NBAE through Getty Images)