A vintage Taurasi visit
Former UConn star returns to state with Phoenix Mercury
UNCASVILLE — Diana Taurasi, 11 weeks removed from back surgery, badly wants to make her season debut Friday night against the Connecticut Sun at Mohegan Sun Arena. Of course she does. Taurasi wants to play anytime, anywhere; always did, always will.
Maybe forever. Yeah, probably forever. “You turn on ESPN today and you’ve got Roger Federer and Nadal and Serena still at the top of their game,” Taurasi said. “You’ve got Tom (Brady) down the road doing what he’s doing at what, 52 now? The key thing with all of this is you hit a certain age, are you still motivated to play? Once that motivation and that drive leaves you, the body goes too. I’m still motivated. I’m still driven. I still want to play. I still want to do this on a day off.”
This offday found Taurasi working out with DeWanna Bonner at the Mohegan Tribal Community Center, giving tips, matching shots, horsing around with her lithe 6foot4 Phoenix teammate whom she compares to Kevin Durant. At 37, Taurasi is all smiles, all hugs, equally ready to trigger a 3point or verbal dagger. She rarely disappoints.
“The (American Athletic Conference) was nice while it lasted, I guess,” Taurasi said when asked about her alma mater’s return to the Big East. “No one wants to watch UConnTulane. Or Toledo. I don’t even know who’s in the American. I didn’t even watch the games. I didn’t even follow it on the app. I was like nah, I’m good. It’ll be nice to get back being in the Big East, seeing some friendly faces, uniforms, rivalries. I think it’s great for the school. We haven’t even played a game and there’s this energy about it around the country. It’s where we belong.”
Taurasi has inched closer to a return in recent days. She’ll wake up Friday morning, see how she feels, go through all the tests and everything it takes to get ready for a game.
“Hopefully, I can get on the court,” she said. “I’d love to.
“I feel 100 times better than I felt presurgery.”
Dating to her days at Storrs, Taurasi’s back has been an issue. Yet four weeks into what she called her preseason boot game, she felt great. She was play
ing oneonone when she felt some discomfort. It got progressively worse.
“It started taking its toll on me in everyday life,” Taurasi said. “Initially I didn’t want to have back surgery. Who does? I went through the whole rehab process.”
Taurasi had a bulging disc at L 34 and it was pressing on the nerve at two different spots.
“It was pretty serious,” Taurasi said. “My surgeon (Terrence Crowder) said it was one of the worst nerve damages he has seen in a long time as far as how irritated it was. I basically lost all function and muscle in my right leg. It atrophied. Numbness.”
She tried two epidurals. Taurasi joked that when her wife, Penny Taylor, had one, the happy result was the birth of their son, Leo. When she had two epidurals, all she got was a numb right leg.
“They must have given me the wrong dose,” Taurasi said. “When Penny got it, she was on cloud nine.”
Taurasi had to decide between a slow rehab, missing the season and not playing again until the spring of 2020 or undergoing surgery and trying to return this season.
“You hear the horror stories,” Taurasi said. “Obviously, Tiger (Woods) is the one that comes to mind. Tony Romo. You start doing the whole Google search thing, you start freaking out when you hear the horror stories and YouTube rehab stories of Joe and Catherine from Michigan. I was all over the place. I found out Swin Cash had a very similar procedure. I reached out to her. She gave me the peace of mind to come back, rethink, and give it a shot.”
Cash told Taurasi she came back better than ever, said she should have done it sooner. Taurasi had surgery April 24.
“It’s pretty incredible what they can these days,” Taurasi said. “When you think back surgery, it’s going to be bed rest. The next day I was up walking the dog. I only have a 2inch scar.”
The long road back has meant things like working with Bonner, passing along things she has learned along the way. The way Taurasi talked, she sounded like a coach. In game, in practice, on the bus, Taurasi says she has tried to bring her energy and insight.
“I could coach,” Taurasi said. “I don’t know if it’s something in my future. I think it takes a certain personality to be a really, really good coach. My personality’s probably not that.
“I’ve been a complete crackhead on the bench. I can’t contain myself.”
Taurasi went on to talk about the Celtics hiring Kara Lawson and the Cavaliers hiring Lindsay Gottlieb as assistant coaches and the Pelicans hiring Cash as a vice president of operations. She is convinced the different point of view the women bring will prove of great value. Yet when asked whether a frontoffice job might be to her liking, Taurasi the forever player suddenly took charge.
“I’m so entrenched in wanting to be a really good basketball player that I can’t even think about what I’m going to do afterward,” Taurasi said. “I try. I try to envision what life is after basketball.”
All she sees is working out and playing games.
“I’ve done everything,” said Taurasi, with three NCAA and WNBA titles and four Olympic gold medals. “That’s not what makes me play basketball. I didn’t set out to win gold medals, to play at UConn, to play in the WNBA. I just love to play. It’s really very simple. You start thinking about those other things, that’s when it gets complicated. I’m thinking about, can I wake up tomorrow and feel good so I can make it for tomorrow’s game? The (2020) Olympics seems like a different lifetime from now.”
Speaking of 2020, have you gotten the suddenly popular 2020 RapinoeBird presidential running mates shirt in the mail?
“Sue doesn’t send me anything,” Taurasi said.
While they were on vacation in Maui in 2017, Taurasi said Thursday, she kept telling Rapinoe, “You’re not going to win the World Cup unless you play more out of the backfield.” Maybe Jill Ellis listened. Maybe Diana is the reason for the World Cup victory. Or maybe it’s all legend.
Rapinoe, at the eye of the nation’s socioathletic hurricane, is Bird’s girlfriend. The former UConn great wrote a stirring defense of Rapinoe in The Players’ Tribune recently. Trump, the White House, equal pay, Rapinoe’s Golden Boot and Golden Ball …
“There was a lot to take in, wasn’t there?” Taurasi said. “Just looking from the outside, the pressure that was built from the social side, the political side, the sports world. There was a lot of pressure and anxiety in those 90 minutes of soccer. It was more than just winning a World Cup. It was winning an opportunity to say what you wanted to say. You lose that game and uhoh, here they come, right? You’re going to talk all this (stuff ) and you can’t win a game to win the World Cup. A lot of times teams with expectations crumble. Megan was fantastic. Alex (Morgan) was amazing. They did an incredible job. And to see what’s happened the last four days in this country around women’s sport and around them, it makes me so proud.
“Sue and Megan are incredible close friends. They are the most humble, most forward, most honest people I’ve been around. I think that’s why their message resonates with people. It’s just honesty. They’re not doing it for branding, for monetary gain. They’re speaking about what they feel and what they live through every single day. I think a lot of people can relate to that, whether it’s on gay rights, equal pay or immigration. I think it’s stuff that affects everyone every day.”