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The daughter of Argentinian and Italian immigrants, Diana Taurasi is arguably the, GOAT, Greatest basketball player Of All Time. Along with teammate Sue Bird, Taurasi and Bird broke the Olympic Gold winning medal record for any basketball player in history, with 5 consecutive Olympic gold medal wins. Taurasi is such an incredible athlete that this is her second year being named a Latina Powerhouse.
Her accolades include being drafted as the overall first pick in the 2004 WNBA Draft. Taurasi went on to win three WNBA Championships with the team that drafted her, the Phoenix Mercury. In 2009, she won the WNBA Most Valuable Player. She’s also won two WNBA Finals MVP Awards. Taurasi’s overseas career includes her six-time Euroleague Championship and seven-time Russian National League championship wins. Kobe Bryant famously nicknamed Taurasi “White Mamba”, a character that was included in the Space Jam reboot.
Starting her career at UCONN, “the basketball capital of the world,” Taurasi won three consecutive NCAA championships with Coach Geno Auriemma who famously said, in regard to their probability of winning the 2004 NCAA Championship, “… We have Diana and you don’t.”
Taurasi has been added to the WNBA ‘W25’, top 25 players in 25 years of the WNBA. There is now a campaign for the WNBA’s GOAT award, and of course, Taurasi is an obvious contender. In an interview with ESPN, Sue Bird noted that, “…is the fact that she’s been able to make her teammates better. There’s something about her style that’s infectious. Whoever’s on the court with her raises their game. I think for me that’s why she’s [Taurasi] the GOAT.”