Tulin's Treasures: Diana Taurasi by the Numbers

We say goodbye to the GOAT and get you set for tonight’s games in today’s installment of Tulin’s Treasures

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Diana Taurasi will never wear a WNBA uniform other than the Phoenix Mercury’s after announcing her retirement Tuesday (Photo credit: Chris Poss)

Goodbye, GOAT: Diana Taurasi by the numbers

Despite my wishes to the contrary, the most prolific and arguably the best player in the history of women’s basketball Diana Taurasi officially announced her retirement from the WNBA after 20 seasons with the Phoenix Mercury. Her WNBA career included three WNBA titles, two Finals MVPs, 14 All-WNBA selections (10-time First Team) and somehow only one WNBA MVP honor in 2009.

• She’s the WNBA’s all-time leader in career points (10,646), field goals (3,341), field-goal attempts (7,869), 3-pointers (1,447), 3-point attempts (4,014), free throws (2,517) and free-throw attempts (2,893) in the regular season, most of those by wide margins (something we’ll get to momentarily). She also owns the WNBA postseason records for career points (1,486), field goals (425), field-goal attempts (1,097), 3-pointers (217) and 3-point attempts (580).

• Her 18.8 points per game are almost a full point more than any of the other 60 players who’ve played in at least 350 regular season WNBA games (Tina Charles is next at 17.9) and her 16 seasons averaging at least 15 ppg are four more than any other player in WNBA history (Lisa Leslie is next with 12; minimum 10 games played in a season). That average rose to 20.4 ppg in the playoffs, 1.2 more than any of the other 22 players to appear in at least 50 playoff games.

Taurasi’s combination of excellence and longevity makes for some margins that ensure her records will stand for quite a while. I look forward to watching Caitlin Clark and others try to surpass them as the WNBA and its seasons expand.

• Taurasi’s 12,132 points between the regular season and playoffs are 3,459 more than any other player in league history; DeWanna Bonner sits in second with 8,673 career points. That margin is bigger than the career point total of the late legend Margo Dydek (3,420 points). At age 37, Bonner won’t even reach 10,000 career points until some time in 2026 at the earliest (her career-high is 697 points in 2023) and that’ll still leave her 2,132 points from catching Taurasi.

• Her playoff-inclusive 1,664 makes from beyond the arc are 552 more than next-most in WNBA history (Sue Bird’s 1,112), almost exactly a third of Taurasi’s total. There are only 18 other players who’ve made at least 550 triples in WNBA history including just five active players: Bonner (731), Kayla McBride (687), Jewell Loyd (612), Kelsey Plum (569) and Kelsey Mitchell (563).

• To put Taurasi’s totals in perspective: at Caitlin Clark’s rookie season pace (805 points and 127 makes from deep in 42 games), it would take her 633 career WNBA games to get to Taurasi’s scoring record and 551 games to reach her record for 3-point makes. Only Taurasi (638 games) and Bird (640) have played 633 games and only Bonner (589) and Lindsay Whalen (562) join them in playing at least 550.

Taurasi’s legend extends far beyond the WNBA with a list of accomplishments a mile long from college to the Olympics and overseas play. Here’s just a sampling of what DT did outside the W:

• She won gold medals at six different Olympics, the most by any basketball player and on a very short list of people to do that including a canoeist, equestrian and fencer (according to a Guinness World Records page last updated in 2022).

• She won six EuroLeague titles during an overseas career mostly spent in Russia (Spartak Moscow from 2006-10 and UMMC Ekaterinburg from 2012-17), where she was a seven-time domestic league champion and three-time player of the year.

• She led UConn to its first consecutive titles and the program’s third, fourth and fifth national championships over her final three seasons from 2002-04, winning NCAA Tournament MOP, Naismith College Player of the Year and Big East Player of the Year during the second and third title runs.

• Her first title run at UConn was a perfect 39-0 season in which a sophomore Taurasi shared the floor with seniors Swin Cash and Bird, the former a Hall of Famer and the latter a finalist who will most likely learn of her induction during Final Four weekend.