PHOENIX -- The WNBA's all-time leading scorer may be done playing but she's not done with basketball.
Two days before her No. 3 will be retired by the Phoenix Mercury, Diana Taurasi told ESPN that she hopes to join Mercury ownership in the next year or two.
"Ownership is always something that's always been on my mind," Taurasi said Friday after a court-naming dedication in Phoenix. "So, thankfully, I'm in a great place where it hopefully can evolve into something. But, I don't want to just do it and not be around. When I do it, I want to be around because I want to have an influence on where this franchise goes. And obviously being in Phoenix would be the goal."
Before she adds owner to her illustrious résumé, Taurasi will begin her postcareer enshrinement campaign this weekend. On Thursday, the city unveiled an updated street sign outside Mortgage Matchup Center to "10646 Taurasi Way" to reflect her career point total, which is the highest in WNBA history. In June 2017, the city unveiled the street sign to honor Taurasi becoming the league's all-time leading scorer with 7,489 points.
On Friday, Taurasi was part of a ribbon-cutting ceremony to commemorate one of three outdoor courts that were painted purple, emblazoned with a logo of a No. 3 and a goat, and renamed Diana Taurasi Court.
And on Sunday, Taurasi will have her jersey retired and enter the Mercury Ring of Honor at halftime of Phoenix's game against the Portland Fire, which will be followed by a postgame ceremony.
Taurasi never saw her jersey being retired as part of her career plan. From the time she went straight from the plane after she arrived in Phoenix as a rookie in 2004 to a meeting with former Mercury owner Jerry Colangelo, Taurasi said her goal was to keep "showing up."
And she did, for 20 seasons, all with the Mercury. There were times throughout her career, however, that Taurasi contemplated leaving Phoenix and even got close, she told ESPN.
"There was a couple breaking points along the way," she said. "My first 10 years you win three championships and you think, well, I mean, we're going to win three more. As an athlete, as a competitor, that's your mindset.
She added: "I mean, look, there's been times where things didn't look great for us as a franchise. But, I think that's the beauty also of what the times were like. You had to be there through the ups and the downs, and it made the ups so much sweeter. Some of my favorite memories were on teams that didn't win a championship because there was that internal struggle and grit that you had to have as a group, knowing you had to be more together or play harder or be more focused than the next team because they were more talented than you. So, I mean, all those moments kind of fed off each other. But yeah, there were times where I'm like, 'Boy, I think the writing's on the wall. I might need a new start. The franchise might need a new start,' but we always kind of figured it out."
She stayed put and won three WNBA titles with the Mercury to accompany her six Olympic gold medals, two WNBA Finals MVPs, one WNBA MVP, 11 All-Star appearances and 10 All-WNBA first-team nods. And then there was her overseas career. She won six EuroLeague titles, seven Russian National League titles, three Russian Cup championships, a Turkish National League crown and a Turkish Cup title. Taurasi made it a point to say that her overseas career holds as much weight as her WNBA tenure does.
"That was 12 years I spent in Europe playing every single day from September to May," she said. "That's a long season. Those 12 years really are 24 years of WNBA play because the eight months. So, I take that as serious."
All of that came after she won three national titles at Connecticut.
Now that she's retired, Taurasi is finally comfortable talking about legacy, a topic she sidestepped as well as she did an oncoming defender on the perimeter. To Taurasi, her legacy isn't a talking point or a discussion. It's her résumé.
"What's your legacy going to be?" Taurasi said. "And it's like, well, your legacy is what you actually do. It's not what you say. Legacy is what do you do throughout your life without even knowing that someone can look at and is inspired by it, can take something from it. I think that's when it truly means something is when you're not trying to do it.
"I mean, there's nothing that is valued more than winning. It's just winning. You have to win. If you truly want to be better than everyone else, you have to win. That's it. You have to win. You have to win at all costs and everyone says they want to win, but not everyone's willing to do the things to win because they're really hard. And sometimes you have to give up something to win, and that's hard for people to do."
Taurasi said she made the right choice by walking away from basketball after the 2024 season "on so many fronts." Yes, she misses the game, the camaraderie, the bus rides, the ribbing, the laughing, but she discovered soon after retiring that she didn't realize how stressed and anxious she was during her career because her obsession with being on the court dominated her mind and priorities.
"Then the minute I said I was done, I just had this weight off my shoulders, which, to be honest, is the only way I knew how to approach basketball," she said.
"It's been better than I thought."
Taurasi believes those athletes who walk away unhappy are unhappy because they didn't take advantage of everything before them throughout their career. She feels like she accomplished everything she set out to because of how she took advantage of the opportunities in front of her: "For me, it was how much basketball can I play in my life?"
Being out of the WNBA for almost two full seasons has given Taurasi a new perspective on the game.
"And, I think, now I'm removed where I don't watch basketball now and think everyone sucks because that was still the competitor in me," she said. "So, I think I've moved on from that where now I can watch the game and appreciate how amazing these players are and I can now have a reference point of, I know how hard it is.
"So, when I watch them, I have this grace for them where like, yeah, you have hard nights, you have great nights. It's hard. The WNBA is really, really hard."
When she sees the current state of the WNBA and the turmoil that's been going on on and off the court, Taurasi said there are two ways to view the league: "Do you want to believe in the chaotic, toxic side of it that's going sideways? Or do you want to believe in, man, look at these arenas are packed, the visibility, games are on TV, people are taking notice, we're talking about it."
Taurasi said the state of the game in the WNBA is as good as it's ever been.
"You watch games, everyone's putting up a hundred points," she said. "The league, from a stylistic standpoint, is what we've wanted for a long time: free flowing. People can actually show their skill and the things that they've worked on, their footwork.
"For a long time, that's what we wanted where it was a physical game and I think when you see things change like that on the court, I think the game's heading in a great direction."
Sunday will be the first step in a career coronation for Taurasi.
By the end of this WNBA season, she'll be eligible for enshrinement in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, and following the 2027 season, Taurasi will be eligible for induction into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame.
The honors weren't something Taurasi had her eye on when she began playing basketball at the outdoor courts in Chino, California. Yet, now, she's two days away from no Mercury player ever wearing No. 3 again.
"I didn't start playing basketball because I wanted all these things," she said. "If you ask anyone, I'd just rather them put it up and, I don't know, go have dinner."