It’s hard to imagine Diana Taurasi wearing any WNBA uniform other than the Phoenix Mercury’s prior to her retirement on Feb. 25 after a WNBA record 20 years with the team.
On Thursday, however, another former WNBA great, Sue Bird, claimed on her “A Touch More” podcast that Phoenix’s Taurasi era could’ve ended a decade sooner from their short-lived plan to join forces on the New York Liberty.
Taurasi’s best friend Bird explained to her wife, USWNT soccer legend and podcast co-host Megan Rapinoe, that this happened in the “2012-13 range.” While they were teammates during a WNBA offseason in Russia, Taurasi and Bird, contacted their agents to mull leaving their respective teams Phoenix and Seattle Storm for New York.
“For those who have heard us talk about our dinners in Russia, they would go anywhere from I would say average four to five hours,” Bird said. “I repeat we have nothing to do. And this one night, probably like in the 2012-13 range, we were like, ‘What are we doing? Like, why aren’t we playing together in the WNBA? This is dumb.
“And we’re like, ‘OK, how would this look?’ And we got to the point where we knew it would be New York. Yeah, we had a team picked out, because let’s be honest, I’m not going to Phoenix and, she’s not coming to Seattle.”
Bird confirmed what we already know: They two ended up sticking with their teams.
“The alcohol was flowing, I’m not gonna lie,” Bird said of that night. “Listen, we had grand plans and then by the next day it was like, ‘Well, I’m not leaving Seattle.’ She’s like, ‘Well, I’m not leaving Phoenix,’ and that was the end of that.”
Taurasi’s fellow future Hall of Famer Bird was in Seattle from 2002 until her retirement in 2022, and led the team to four titles. She held the WNBA’s previous longest career record of 19 years because she was sidelined for two from knee surgeries. Taurasi won three WNBA titles with Phoenix.
Taurasi and Bird’s international accolades are unparalleled. They led the USA women’s basketball team to five gold medals from 2004 to 2021. Taurasi eclipsed Bird’s former USA basketball record with a sixth in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
As for Bird’s reference to their time in Russia together, they drove UMMC Ekaterinburg to three straight Russian League championship wins.
Bird and Taurasi’s early career together began as backcourt mates at UConn from 2000-02. They led the Huskies to the 2002 title, the last undefeated team in college basketball history (39-0).
Bird is originally from New York and Taurasi’s from the southern California town of Chino. So it makes sense that they pondered continuing their teammate relationship to win a title in the league’s biggest market New York, one of the WNBA’s three original franchises besides the Los Angeles Sparks and Phoenix in 1997. New York eventually won its first title last season.
After Taurasi’s final regular season home game against Seattle on Sept. 19, she explained how her late friend Kobe Bryant “set the bar” by staying with the L.A. Lakers for 20 years. She admitted her tenure in Phoenix didn’t come without hardships while winning three titles.
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“You can probably handpick that many people that played for one team for that long,” Taurasi said. “And it’s not easy being in one place for 20 years. It’s a long relationship of ups and downs and compromise, and I don’t like this and I don’t like that.
“But at the end of the day, this franchise through my ups and my downs always had my back by coming back a better player, better teammate, and in that sense I’ve been really lucky.”
“Kobe set the bar. … And it’s not easy being in one place for 20 years.”
Diana Taurasi on her UConn coach Geno Auriemma attending what may be her final Mercury home game, and her late friend Kobe Bryant’s 20 years with Lakers as a motivator for her WNBA career all in Phoenix. pic.twitter.com/E03233APTh
— DANA (@iam_DanaScott) September 20, 2024
Taurasi’s the league’s all-time leading scorer, Bird’s eighth on that list, and No. 1 all-time in assists. They were the faces of the WNBA, and could’ve changed the league’s landscape on the same team, but didn’t.
Fortunately for the Mercury, Taurasi let that idea go and led them to their last title in 2014.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Bird says she, Diana Taurasi wanted to form top WNBA duo on NY Liberty
