2024 Paris Olympics: Diana Taurasi isn’t finished forging her legacy

PHOENIX — Diana Taurasi, always with something to say, entered the Phoenix Mercury’s state-of-the-art practice facility for the first time speechless. Never in her 20-year career had the three-time WNBA champion walked into a building decked out with training amenities specifically for her team.

Kahleah Copper had the same experience for much of her nine seasons, most of which were spent practicing with the Chicago Sky in a public recreation center. When she dropped her hands from her mouth in awe upon arrival to see the Mercury’s new digs, she had one thing to say to the veteran guard whose name adorned the two practice courts.

“Thank you,” Copper said during the WNBA’s All-Star weekend, when Team USA began preparations for the Paris Olympics. “It sucks because she won’t get to experience it maybe as long as I will, yet she paved the way for me to have this.”

One last grand celebration for the league’s anointed GOAT kicked off last week with the official opening of the $100 million facility, which is still one of the few team-specific ones in the WNBA, and the naming of the Diana Taurasi Courts.

It continues with the 2024 Paris Olympics tipping off Monday, when Team USA and its six-time Olympian are on track for history. The national team is seeking a record eighth consecutive gold medal, five of which Taurasi came home holding.

“She’s one of the greatest competitors that the league and women’s basketball has ever seen, or sports have ever seen. One of the all-time greatest competitors,” said Team USA coach Cheryl Reeve, who has coached against Taurasi during the player’s entire career. “It’s a player that we have loved to hate as an opponent. But that means you are really, really doing something great.”

Taurasi is the connective tissue from the league’s eager trailblazers to its TV-traffic titans pushing for more. Her first Olympics in Athens the summer after she was drafted in 2004 featured Sue Bird, Dawn Staley, Tamika Catchings, Lisa Leslie, Tina Thompson, Swin Cash and Sheryl Swoopes. All are Hall of Famers except her former UConn teammate and good friend Bird, who retired after the 2022 season but is a no-brainer for the honor.

When Taurasi takes the court in Paris to face Japan in the Games’ opener, she’ll do it alongside today’s faces of the team in Breanna Stewart (third Olympics) and A’ja Wilson (second). Superstar guards Copper, Sabrina Ionescu, Kelsey Plum and Jackie Young are making their first 5×5 appearances (Plum and Young won 3×3 gold in Tokyo). And rookie Caitlin Clark, the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer whose game has lifted interest to new heights, is poised to take the torch from Taurasi at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Or, at least the indication is Tauarsi will finally be enjoying a beer on a nearby beach instead of suiting up for competition. After Taurasi and Sue Bird won their record fifth gold at a delayed Tokyo Games, Taurasi quipped on the broadcast, “See you in Paris!” As it turned out — because it can be difficult to tell — the 42-year-old guard was serious.

She will become the first USA Basketball player to appear in six Olympics and any medal would make her the most decorated team-sport athlete in Olympic history. That’s on top of World Cup golds (three), EuroLeague titles (six), WNBA championships (three), NCAA championships (three), a multitude of individual honors (two WNBA Finals MVPs) and a plethora of league records.

“Her legacy and what she’s done in her career speaks for itself,” said Copper, in her first year playing with Taurasi in Phoenix. “But I’m truly grateful for her paving the way. I think it’s important that you honor those that have come before you.”

Naming courts for a legend is usually reserved for those in retirement, but nothing about Taurasi’s career is typical. She became the first player to crack 10,000 career points in the WNBA and was named to the 15th, 20th and 25th anniversary teams. In a league dominated by forwards, she was the last guard to win league MVP in 2009. In 2021, fans voted her the greatest of all time as she won her fifth Olympic gold at age 39 and led the Mercury to the WNBA Finals.

“There’s a lot of people who come before her who kind of trailblaze it, but when you have pretty much all the records in the league, I think it kind of speaks for itself,” Mercury sixth-year guard Sophie Cunningham told Yahoo Sports. “She’s the ultimate competitor. She’s feisty, she’s focused, she’s just a fiery human being and she cares a lot.”

Legacies are created in many moments over time, and Taurasi secured hers long before this summer. Everything from the 2024 All-Star Game, where she opened the scoring with a 3-pointer (she leads the league in those, too) to Paris (where she could become USA’s all-time leading scorer) and back to Phoenix (seeking a record-tying fourth title) is the coda to it.

And so at every turn and player podium at Footprint Center, the only arena she’s ever called home, popped questions about Taurasi, the facility bearing her name and the veteran of all veterans for Team USA. What does she mean to you? What’s it signify? How do you feel about the courts being named for her?

“I’m not kidding, this is like the most deserving thing,” Cunningham told Yahoo Sports. “She’s the GOAT of our league. For us to name the courts after her, it’s huge.”

“It’s something she really deserves, and I think it’s super cool,” said Clark, a future great.

“No player deserves it more than Dee,” said Mercury center Brittney Griner, who also played with Taurasi in EuroLeague. “Everything that she does for each and every single one of those on this team, staff [and] how she treats everybody coming in and out of this gym. It’s just a testament to her and everything that she is.”

Taurasi, when given the opportunity, adjusted the praise every time. No, she told Copper and the hordes of new media now deeply invested in the league she helped build, “We deserve it.”

The league’s growth hasn’t always been as consistent as Taurasi’s scoring. Before the 2020 collective bargaining agreement, Taurasi was making around $100,000 on a max contract and free agency was essentially nonexistent. She spent most of her career playing overseas in WNBA offseasons to supplement her income. Endorsements, though limited in those years, helped as one of the few WNBA superstars of the league’s second decade who crossed over into mainstream relevance along with players like Maya Moore, Candace Parker, Leslie and Catchings.

Shortly after her rookie year, the Houston Comets, Charlotte Sting and Sacramento Monarchs folded while other franchises moved. League-wide average game attendance dropped and interest waned from the initial excitement, but the Mercury’s X-Factor grew the franchise and its attendance.

She’s outlasted everyone she played with early in her career — even Bird, who publicly announced her last Olympics and retirement season — and now will close it out amid the most relevance the league has ever had. Taurasi is an unrestricted free agent this winter.

The All-Star Game averaged 3.44 million viewers Saturday night, more than double the previous record (1.44 million in 2003, before Taurasi) and eclipsing all but two WNBA games in history, which were played on the league’s debut weekend in 1997. The WNBA will finally expand from 12 teams to markets in the Bay Area and Toronto with at least two more on the horizon.

It was the 17th game this season with at least one million viewers, 15 of which included Clark. Rookies Angel Reese and Cameron Brink are also credited with bringing in new fans and lifting the sport’s relevance. They are signing massive endorsement deals and, in line with recent lottery draftees, likely won’t play overseas.

It’s been rewarding, Taurasi said, to see the recent growth. She thought the 2014 All-Star Game in Phoenix was the “pinnacle of basketball,” but 2024 eclipsed it.

“There’s always these moments when it comes to sports that you really have to take advantage of and I think we’re at that point in the WNBA [and] women’s sports,” Taurasi said. “It’s a great time to take advantage of this momentum with the great players that we have, new [and] old, to make sure we really respect the generation that came even before me. Those were pioneers and trailblazers that sacrificed every single day, kept showing up without a lot of the things that we get to take advantage of. It’s really been a humbling weekend for a lot of us.”

None more than the player who has been through most of it first-hand. Team owner Mat Ishbia pushed for the facility to be finished three months early so it would be ready for All-Star weekend. A few weeks ago, he called Taurasi to ask about naming the courts in her honor.

Icons littered the crowd at the opening, and Taurasi invited all “former, current and future” players to help her unveil the naming logos. She practiced there for the first time in Team USA gear, joking after her first shot attempt “let the games begin.”

It will likely be her last Olympics and her final All-Star nod even if she continues playing next season. The Americans are favored in Paris as they have been Taurasi’s entire career. Anecdotally there is more talk around them than ever before. Did the selection committee get it right given the loss to Team WNBA in the All-Star Game? Should Clark have been on the team instead of Taurasi?

Copper watches Taurasi’s work ethic daily and the effort she puts in to keep a 42-year-old body at its peak, performing against 22-year-olds fans believe are already the best the game’s ever seen. Copper feels the same way about Taurasi as she did playing in Chicago with Parker, the 2008 No. 1 pick who retired before this season.

“I wanted to be a big part of her legacy and that means winning, adding to [it],” Copper said. “Same thing with Dee. I want to be a part of it, so I want to give her another [WNBA] championship. I want to experience being an Olympian with her. Just being a winner.”

And ensuring success paves the way for the next group of stars. Or a full generation, if any can stick around long enough to play on courts named for them.