Taurasi soaks in tributes amid ‘1 more year’ chants

PHOENIX — When Phoenix Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts walked down the sideline to where Diana Taurasi was sitting late in the fourth quarter of Thursday night’s 89-70 loss to the Seattle Storm, he had to summon the help of Brittney Griner, Natasha Cloud and Sophie Cunningham to convince the WNBA’s all-time leading scorer to go back in for what could be the last home game of her illustrious career.

Finally, the foursome, along with the help of a sellout crowd chanting “D.T.,” convinced Taurasi, 42, to take a curtain call. The plan was for her not to play in the final quarter, but with 3:11 left, the only WNBA player to score 10,000 career points entered the game at the Footprint Center to a standing ovation. She acknowledged the fans’ response with waves and claps as chants of “one more year” echoed throughout the arena.

Then, six seconds later, Taurasi was subbed out and, for possibly the last time, walked off the court on which she played 261 games, scored 5,156 points, dished out 1,137 assists, grabbed 1,040 rebounds and made 678 3-pointers.

She hugged Tibbetts and as she made her way back to the bench, she stopped to hug and kiss her parents, Mario and Lily Taurasi, who were sitting courtside, before hugging each teammate until she got to the end of the bench.

Whether it was her last time playing in front of the home crowd that has cheered her on since she was drafted by the Mercury first overall in 2004 is yet to be seen. There is still basketball to be played. Phoenix travels to Minnesota for a best-of-three playoff series starting Sunday against the Lynx. Beyond a potential third game in Arizona, Taurasi isn’t sure whether Thursday was, in fact, her final home game.

“I think once the season’s over, I’ll have a better idea of what it looks like for me in the future,” Taurasi said after the game.

Thursday night, however, had all the makings of a send off.

For weeks, the Mercury had launched an “If this is it …” social media campaign leading up to Thursday. Awaiting fans at the game were shirts draped over the seats honoring Taurasi. From there, the pomp and circumstance continued.

During warm-ups, Kahleah Copper joined Cloud and Cunningham in wearing Taurasi jerseys from various eras. All three along with Griner wore Taurasi’s jerseys during introductions.

Her former University of Connecticut coach, Geno Auriemma, made the trip for the game, as did long-time friends Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe. Taurasi’s former Mercury coach Corey Gaines was in attendance along with a number of former college and high school teammates. Her small group of best friends made the trip as did a large contingent of her family and other friends.

And Taurasi had no idea they were coming.

“Everyone just said, ‘Good luck tonight,’ and ‘We’ll see you in the winter,'” Taurasi said.

“I went to warm up and I saw Corey Gaines, who I have so much respect for. We learned so much from him. So, he was the first domino to drop. And, then, as the game was going on, I’m like, ‘Oh, oh.’ A lot of pleasant faces that I shared a lot of great moments with. And we’ll break bread tonight.”

For years, Taurasi has said she didn’t want a farewell tour and would likely just walk away into the proverbial sunset without much of a retirement announcement. The build-up to Thursday night and the attention throughout the night — Tibbetts said before the game that the goal was to make the night as special as possible for Taurasi — was “a lot,” Taurasi said, especially with a playoff series on the horizon.

“But you can’t stop and think and reminisce and think about if it is the last time walking down that tunnel, the last time putting on that jersey at home, I’ve just had so many great memories in this building,” she said. “This city is just second to none to me.

“It’s home now and it’s pretty cool to see kids that started coming in 2004 and now they’re married, they have families, they own businesses. You’ve seen them grow up and they’ve seen me, kind of, grow up and that’s been pretty cool.”

While fans in the crowd cried as the final home game of the season came to a close, Taurasi said she didn’t want to suppress her feelings. She wasn’t going to fight a feeling or try to feel a certain way.

“I just kind of took it all in,” she said. “I was trying to focus on the game a little bit, too, but it’s just a lot of memories that go through your mind — the good ones, the bad ones — and, more than anything, just really grateful to have really good people around me my whole career and going forward.

“That is the one thing that I think back on. It’s been the same faces for 20 years and that feels just as good as the jersey for 20 years.”

In many ways, the game was inconsequential. Both teams had their seeds and playoff schedules solidified by tipoff. Tibbetts said during his postgame news conference that his rotations were evidence that beating the Storm wasn’t the priority. He just wanted Phoenix to get through the game healthy.

It was all about Taurasi.

She played 18 minutes and finished with nine points, two assists and a rebound while scoring all her points on 3-pointers. She scored Phoenix’s first points with 7:08 left in the first quarter and then hit another 3 in the final minute of the first. Her final points of the night came early in the second quarter.

After the game, the Mercury played a short video of friends, family and teammates reading a letter to Taurasi, and then Taurasi spoke to the crowd. She said when she got to Arizona in 2004, she “kinda knew” she was going to be in Phoenix for a long time. When she tried to wrap up her speech, she started saying, “If this this is the last time …” and was cut off with chants of “one more year.”

At the end, she finished with: “If it is the last time, it felt like the first time.”

In the locker room after the game, Taurasi looked a brief assessment of her future in a conversation with Griner.

“I was talking to B.G. and I’m like, ‘There’s still days where I’m like, I could still do this. I still want to play basketball,’ and then there’s the flip side where there are days where I’m crawling out of bed and that’s, I guess, a struggle you have when you get to this point in your career,” Taurasi said. “You have to do so much to be able to get back on the court and it’s bittersweet in a lot of ways.”

At this point, those days are 50-50, Taurasi said. No matter how good she feels on the good days or how bad she feels on the bad days, Taurasi, a mother of two, knows it’s time to look at the big picture when thinking about her basketball future.

“I have to take a step back and think about what’s next in my future, too,” she said. “I have to think about my family. So, as soon as we win this championship, this decision will come quick.”