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How Diana Taurasi, Sylvia Fowles and Sue Bird rewrote the WNBA record books


They are three of the greatest players in women’s basketball history. They have won multiple WNBA championships and Olympic gold medals, helping to grow the league and surpass WNBA records. And one of them turns 40 on Saturday.

Diana Taurasi, Sylvia Fowles and Sue Bird has redefined several categories of statistics in the WNBA. But their dominance is most evident in the three biggest stats in the game: Taurasi is the WNBA’s all-time goalscorer, Fowles is the all-time rebound leader, and Bird is the all-time assist leader. age.

While longevity has played a part in their path to the top – Taurasi in his 18th WNBA season, Fowles in his 15th and 19th Bird – their enduring excellence sets them apart. . Bird, a 5 foot-9 long guard for Hurricane Seattleturns 42 in October, and Fowles, 6-6 Minnesota Lynx center, turned 37 that same month.

Like Taurasi, the 6-0 defender for Phoenix Mercuryturning 40, we look at each player running to the record, other WNBA legends they’ve surpassed along the way, and the players behind them on the scoring, rebounding and assists charts .


Taurasi: A goal scorer like no other

Taurasi, who says she has no plans to retire early, considered the greatest player in women’s basketball history. Fans voted for GOAT last year as the WNBA celebrated its 25th season – and ranked as No. 1 player of all time in WNBA history by an ESPN panel last September – Taurasi is known for two distinct characteristics as a goalscorer. She possesses an amazingly quick and easy release no matter where she is shooting from on the field. And she fully believes that she should be the one to take the shot no matter how high the stakes are.

Even for someone like Taurasi, who is regularly expected to take the winning pictures in the game, you have to accept that she will miss some of them as well. But Taurasi, a three-time WNBA champion and 2009 regular season MVP, has never shied away from that responsibility.

And she has largely lived up to that. 1st pick in 2004, Taurasi is a five-time WNBA champion, the only player in the league’s history to score at least 600 points in six consecutive seasons, and the only player to score at least 600 points in six consecutive seasons. 800 points in a season multiple times (2006, 2008). Taurasi also holds the WNBA career records for goals taken on the field, 3 goals scored, average points per season (25.3) and points per season (860).

Taurasi became the league’s top scorer on 18 June 2017, overtaking Tina Thompson – who has scored 7,488 points in 496 career games – in her 377th career game.

That is a record that may never be matched. Taurasi has averaged 15 plus points per game in 15 different seasons of his career, the most of any player in league history. And twice this season, she has scored at least 30 points, becoming the oldest player in the league to do so.

Taurasi has now scored 1,856 more points than any other player in regular season history. And as ESPN Stats & Information notes, the difference between Taurasi and runner-up Thompson is bigger than Thompson and Angel McCoughtry, who are 16th (1,691 points difference).

Perhaps the only question left is whether Taurasi, who has 9,344 points, can score another 656 points to 10,000.

Taurasi is averaging 15.5 PPG this season; If she hits that average in every game onward, she’ll need 42 regular season games to hit 10,000 career points, according to ESPN Stats & Information. However, if Taurasi can match her career scoring average of 19.3 PPG, it will take 33 regular season games to hit 10,000 points, according to ESPN Stats & Information.

So far, Phoenix has played 11 games in 2022 in a 36-game open season. If Taurasi stays healthy and doesn’t miss any games, and maintains or achieves either of the above two point averages, she could hit 10,000 career points at some point next season. .

(Note: Candice Dupree, who is yet to officially retire but hasn’t played a single game in 2022, is the next closest active player on the leaderboard scoring 6,895 points, placing 4th overall. center of Phoenix Mercury Tina Charles ranked sixth with 6,749. Third place is Tamika Catchings with 7,380 points and Cappie Pondexter with 6,811 rounds in the top five.)


Fowles: The dominant force around the ring

Fowles has said it’s her final season, but her recovery is as dominant as ever: She’s the only player in the league to average a brace (16.5 PPG, 10.3 RPG) this season.

Fowles’ regenerative powers have never been on her scale and strength alone, though both are phenomenal. She has the textbook placement and plays as an old fashioned center who refuses to give up her space in the lows. You’ll never see Fowles – two-time WNBA champion and 2017 season MVP – away from the touch; she always takes it and almost always wins.

Defense is an important part of Fowles’ game. Of her 3,836 rebounds, there were 2,743 counter-attacks. But when considering her 1,092 offensive goals, it’s important to remember that she’s shot a WNBA record 59.8% from the field during her career. Whether with her accuracy or superiority over glass, she simply eliminates a lot of second-chance scoring opportunities for her opponents.

As the WNBA Defensive Player of the Year, Fowles has been an equally consistent and effective counter-attacker whether she has to be her own anchor or team up with another solid foothold. Fowles and former Lynx forward Rebekkah Brunson, another excellent smasher, are as intense a feedback duo as the WNBA has ever seen, helping Lynx win titles in 2015 and 2017 (Fowles was Finals MVP in both of them). time). On July 28, 2020, during the second game of the bubble season in Bradenton, Florida, Fowles’ 3,357 career rebound overtook Brunson to claim the WNBA career record.

Another key factor to Fowles’ sustained success: Despite playing in such a physically fit style, she has largely avoided injury. Calf injuries have limited Fowles – who also holds the single-season WNBA record for rebounds (404), defensive bounces (282) and rebounds per game (11.9) – down. seven games left in 2020, but it’s the first major one she has missed since joining Lynx in 2015.

However, on Thursday, Lynx announced that Fowles out indefinitely suffered a meniscus injury in his right knee. Over 12 games, she leads the league in rebounds-per-game and on-field goalscoring rate (64.1), while averaging 1.5 steals and 1.3 saves.

Currently, Fowles is picking up pace in her fifth season averaging at least 15 points and 10 rebounds and shooting at least 60% away. According to ESPN Stats & Information, no other player in WNBA history has ever had such a season – and Fowles will draw Naismith Hall of Famer Artis Gilmore for the most such seasons in WNBA or NBA history ( he also has five games). Fowles was the #2 overall pick in the 2008 WNBA draft.


Bird: The ultimate distributor and leader

Like all great point guards, Bird has exceptional court vision and a high degree of assertiveness, which is a must if you’re a floor champion. But several other things really make the four-time WNBA champion one of the greatest point defenders of all time, male or female, at any level.

Bird who said all signs indicate that 2022 is her last season, not only knows the game, she also feels it. That means that while she knows the inside out of the playbook, she also understands the difficulties and adjustments that happen as you get into the flow of the game.

Like Taurasi, Bird has established an all-time support mark that is perhaps hard to lead. Bird currently has 3,100 supports and the next active player, Chicago sky‘S Courtney Vandersloot, ranked 4th with 2,254 assists, behind Ticha Penicheiro (2,600) and Lindsay Whalen (2,345). Taurasi comes in at 5th place (2,079).

Bird is averaging 6.5 assists per game this season, and if she maintains that pace in 2022 it will mark her 15th season WNBA record to average at least 5.0 APG. The next closest are Penicheiro’s nine such seasons, according to ESPN Stats & Information.

The 15 seasons plus APG would also tie her with the NBA’s Steve Nash and Mark Jackson as the fifth-most season in NBA or WNBA history, according to ESPN Stats & Information. Only LeBron James and John Stockton (19 children), Jason Kidd (18 years old) and Chris Paul (17) there are many more.

Bird said it took her years to adjust to the nuances of managing the game and the personalities of her teammates, and in the process, she made a number of mistakes. But the basic skill of directing others to their best has always been Bird’s forte.

In fact, her leadership is perhaps her most valuable quality. Bird always takes the time to understand her teammates as players and humans, but she does it very carelessly and never shows anyone on the field. She can make her point and even discipline her teammates in a respectful way. People want to follow Bird’s lead and that’s been true of every team she’s been on, from UConn to the Storm for the United States women’s national team.

Bird, who was a three-time regular support leader during the season, overtook Penicheiro to claim the WNBA’s all-time record on August 1, 2017, with her 2,600th assist. She also holds the WNBA record for career regular season starts (557). Bird, the overall No. 1 pick in the 2002 WNBA draft, has never come off the bench in his career.



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