Diana Taurasi’s jersey retirement celebrated with gratitude for her greatness

PHOENIX — There are certain sporting figures that transcend the significance of a Ring of Honor or Hall of Fame, terms like “legend” or “icon.”

Name streets after them. Name arenas after them. That’s the level Diana Taurasi reached with the Phoenix Mercury, one that no one in the history of Arizona sports has and likely never will.

Sunday at Mortgage Matchup Center, you could sense gratitude from the fans in attendance throughout the evening, for her greatness and to see her enter the Ring of Honor with her jersey going up in the rafters.

It was a true event. The greatest Olympian ever, Michael Phelps, was among those grateful fans, as was Hall of Famer Sheryl Swoopes, former teammates like Brittney Griner, a few Phoenix Suns players including Devin Booker and Arizona Cardinals great Larry Fitzgerald right after going in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Suns center Oso Ighodaro is from the Valley and grew up watching Taurasi in the building he now calls home.

“It’s amazing,” he told Arizona Sports. “Growing up, I would watch the games and know that she’s one of the greatest ever, and to just have that in the same state was amazing. I came to more Mercury games growing up than Suns games, so it was great to see her honored for sure.”

Suns wing Ryan Dunn watched from afar but could still sense the impact.

“She was one of a kind. Growing up, seeing her play here and seeing how much the fans would support her and love her, it’s great,” he said. “I”m glad I got a chance to meet her, talk to her and the person that she says that she is in real life, that’s who she truly is.”

Suns and Mercury CEO/president Josh Bartelstein got to work closely with Taurasi for the tail-end of her career.

“It’s awesome. It’s rare to truly be around greatness and she’s definitely greatness,” Bartelstein told Arizona Sports. “And to see what she does every day, what she’s about. … It stands out very clearly, to see what she means to the city. You could feel the energy in the building all weekend (and) it’s very special to be a part of it.”

While there is a rightful “woe is me” attitude with everything fans in the Valley have been through since its then-new baseball team won a championship, Taurasi and the Mercury are unfortunately cast aside too often when that so-called drought is brought up. The Arizona Diamondbacks, Cardinals and Suns entered that period which now extends past a quarter-century, but Taurasi during that brought home three championships, winning Finals MVP twice.

Fittingly, the one person’s career impact in the Valley that could come close to Taurasi’s entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame the weekend prior, Fitzgerald. The extra magic we get to these G.O.A.T. conversations and debates is that oftentimes, that is not what keeps those people linked forever. It’s instead the bond they form over the responsibility they take on with being a true face of the franchise, city, state and sometimes in Taurasi’s case even league.

Fitzgerald is someone Taurasi said immediately welcomed her to the city with open arms back in 2004, becoming one of the first people to make himself available to whatever she needed.

“There’s no one better that I’d rather share my career here with than Larry,” Taurasi said. “He did it the right way every single day here.”

Taurasi did the same welcome for Booker, and we hear stories of Booker continuing that tradition with others.

That’s a brief snippet on what Taurasi meant locally, and what she represents for the WNBA takes her into a whole other stratosphere.

The ongoing emergence of A’ja Wilson is the only reason why Taurasi is not the undisputed G.O.A.T. of the W.

Taurasi has over 2,000 more points and made over 400 more 3-pointers than anyone in league history. She is fourth in assists, 19th in steals and 25th in blocks, a star for two decades that finished third in MVP voting as a rookie and won one a few years later.

It’s impossible to look at what the W has become over the last few years and not credit the first wave of superstars the league got like Swoopes, Taurasi, Lisa Leslie, Candace Parker, Sue Bird and others for giving the WNBA a foundation until the proper long-term support came. There is no post-Caitlin Clark explosion without the relentless work those women put in that was fueled by their love for the game (and certainly not for the money), doing so through far tougher circumstances the league has been correcting as of late (and needs to keep correcting).

When asked about that progress, Taurasi made sure to give some shine to the pioneers that came before her and the league itself, like Ann Meyers Drysdale and Cheryl Miller.

“I think today is a celebration of that too, when you talk about two decades of being in this league,” Taurasi said. “We’ve been through it all. The highs, the lows, the tough times, the long road trips, shortage of staff, only 11 players on the roster — it’s truly a badge of honor to play in the WNBA. To see where it’s going now with the visibility, with the value of the league going where it’s at. It’s where we wanted it to be at for a long time and we’re all really proud and honored to be a part of it.”

Taurasi noted how the league expanded from salaries doubling into six figures as a “big win” to the recent development of million-dollar salaries, a breakthrough Taurasi correctly points out as “the value these players have” and how this growth doesn’t force players to also compete overseas, which Taurasi did in spurts of her career.

When you talk about the true dedication that comes with achieving the greatness that Taurasi did, retirement can be an odd transition. That’s the case for any athlete, but there’s a unique aspect to finding no other alternative for the competitive dominance these mythical figures reached other than what they had only known before, which Father Time always takes away eventually.

Interestingly enough, Taurasi is chilling a year-and-a-half after retirement. Not many sleepless nights (except I’m sure with her two children she mentioned getting to spend more time with now). She described it as “pretty easy” to move on.

Hearing Taurasi talk about what she wanted to be remembered for made that simpler to understand, as well as spotlighted her ridiculous amounts of maturity considering her competitiveness and work ethic is up there with anyone.

“Hopefully it was someone you wanted to be around, that you wanted to watch, that you wanted to play hard for, that you wanted to come to the gym early because you knew we were going to compete and have a good time and we were going to enjoy our time together on and off the floor,” Taurasi said. “Basketball can get very serious, it can get tense, and I always wanted to be in the locker room and be that person that no matter who it was — whether you played a lot of minutes (or) didn’t play at all — I wanted to be the person that galvanized everyone, and hopefully that’s the one thing [they] felt that type of energy (from me). …

“I was always willing to put them before my goals and the things that I wanted to do. I always put that on the backburner, because that’s the way I thought basketball was supposed to be played.”

Those personal motivations throughout her career weren’t necessarily about winning or losing, allowing that ease of retirement to settle in nicely.

“I didn’t have this urge to be competitive, I didn’t have this urge to prove myself,” she said. “Hopefully I still treat the day the same way where whoever I come in contact with, I give them my attention, I give them my energy. … When I watch games and I see how competitive and stressed and how much anxiety these players have, I understand that. … I don’t miss that.

“That’s the one thing. As I stepped away, I feel like I’m floating on a different cloud now.”

Related

Mercury surrender lead to Fire late, spoiling Taurasi’s Ring of Honor nightDiana Taurasi looks back on the loyalty, relationships developed during Mercury careerMercury unable to slow down red-hot Mystics in lossKelsey Plum leads Mercury scorers in 1st start, Phoenix falls to DreamKelsey Plum makes immediate impact in Mercury debut, winMercury’s new Big 3 with Kelsey Plum must click right away