It isn’t surprising to established WNBA enthusiasts that Diana Taurasi seems in short chirping at an unknown goal within the league’s 2024 marketing campaign that parodies an place of business onboarding video. The clip is to spotlight that “communique is very valued.”
Taurasi does a number of it. Most commonly trash speaking with blunt honesty and sarcasm thrown in for excellent measure. Welcome to the WNBA, the place personalities are already aplenty, and Taurasi stands above all of them, whether or not the sports activities international at massive has been looking at her do it or now not.
Taurasi, 41, took warmth ultimate month when she mentioned “fact is coming” for the league’s incoming beginners. Collegiate enthusiasts took it as a shot at Caitlin Clark, although Taurasi didn’t use any names and interviewer Scott Van Pelt recognized a couple of avid gamers in his query.
The 20-year veteran’s reaction when requested concerning the fan complaint used to be vintage Taurasi.
“Yeah, , the brand new enthusiasts are truly delicate at the moment,” Taurasi instructed a bunch of journalists Sunday in Phoenix prior to the Mercury left for coaching camp at San Diego State. “You’ll’t say the rest.”
Paradoxically, Taurasi made her preliminary feedback whilst at the Ultimate 4 set of “The Fowl and Taurasi Display,” an ESPN multicast constructed round Taurasi handing over wild, amusing, unfiltered remarks as shut good friend Sue Fowl assists in keeping the display moderately not off course.
The display thought got here out of Taurasi’s look on Fowl and spouse Megan Rapinoe’s Instagram Reside “A Contact Extra” all through the 2020 COVID-19 quarantine. Taurasi threw coloration at beginners that evening, too, prior to Clark had enrolled at Iowa. The 22-year-old Clark wasn’t even born when Taurasi’s persona first went nationwide as a cold-blooded celebrity at UConn, the place she gained 3 consecutive nationwide championships and turned into the college’s first two-time nationwide participant of the yr.
To be truthful, that used to be a complete era in the past.
Her resume with the Mercury, which decided on her No. 1 general in 2004, is extra illustrious. She’s a three-time WNBA champion, two-time Finals MVP, 14-time All-WNBA participant and 2004 Rookie of the 12 months. She made it onto the MVP poll in all however 5 of her 19 seasons. 5 occasions she positioned within the most sensible 3, however best as soon as did she win it. No guard has been named MVP since her in 2009.
In August, Taurasi surpassed 10,000 occupation regular-season issues at Footprint Heart in Phoenix on a season-high 42-point evening. She broke the league’s scoring document in 2017, passing Tina Thompson’s mark of seven,488. On the league’s fifteenth, twentieth and twenty fifth anniversaries, she used to be named some of the largest and maximum influential avid gamers in league historical past.
Whilst going out of the country to complement her WNBA source of revenue all through the primary part of her occupation, she gained six EuroLeague titles and 7 Russian nationwide league championships as a three-time Russian League Participant of the 12 months.
The four-time USA Basketball Feminine Athlete of the 12 months performed at the ultimate six Crew USA rosters to win Olympic gold. She is within the combine to be named this summer season to the 2024 Paris roster, because the group goes for a 7th consecutive gold. Taurasi may go Fowl as the primary participant to win six Olympic golds.
There’s no denying her play can again up the rest she would possibly say. And he or she’s perfected her supply whilst balancing a significant reaction. Take her respond to the offseason outcry in regards to the Mercury hiring head trainer Nate Tibbetts, an established NBA assistant with 0 training enjoy within the ladies’s recreation.
“I imply, I hate males,” Taurasi mentioned. “I don’t know the way they employed him.”
She paused for impact and laughed.
“That’s simply all sizzling smoke, click-bait,” she mentioned Sunday. “The person is a trainer, that’s what he does for his complete existence. He coached on the absolute best degree within the NBA and to now have a chance to be round him those ultimate 4 or 5 months [has] been refreshing.”
Taurasi, dubbed the “White Mamba” via Kobe Bryant, stays a face of the league for her good fortune in addition to her antics. She stops at little to win, even lobbying for a technical foul on Fowl within the deciding Recreation 5 of the mythical 2018 semifinal sequence Fowl’s Seattle Typhoon gained.
On the 2016 Olympics, Taurasi quipped the group may “run round bare” to attract extra consideration to their coming near near gold. After the Mercury misplaced the 2021 WNBA Finals to the Chicago Sky, she reportedly smashed within the visiting locker room door at Wintrust Enviornment. The Mercury declined to wait postgame media availability. Requested about it 24 hours later at go out interviews, Taurasi stored it temporary.
“There have been a large number of doorways in there,” she mentioned.
Within the 2020 bubble season held at IMG Academy in Florida, she argued a bad via telling referees, “I’ll see you within the foyer later.” It unsurprisingly drew a technical, any other class for which she’s well known. She as soon as drew one in boulevard garments from the bench.
No longer incorporated within the league’s “Welcome to the WNBA” creation: The season unofficially starts when Taurasi attracts her first tech. It gained’t take lengthy. Opening evening is Would possibly 14.