Diana Taurasi

American professional basketball player, five-time Olympic gold medalist and all-time WNBA leading scorer with Phoenix Mercury since 2004

Kobe Bryant gave Diana Taurasi the nickname "White Mamba" himself, an endorsement from a player notoriously stingy with praise for anyone outside his own circle -- Bryant reportedly admired the way Taurasi played with the same competitive edge and trash talk he built his own reputation on, regardless of the fact that women's basketball rarely got that kind of crossover recognition from the men's game at the time. For most of her prime, Taurasi played nearly year-round: a WNBA season with Phoenix followed almost immediately by a Russian league season with clubs like Spartak Moscow and UMMC Ekaterinburg, where the pay was several times what the WNBA offered. That double schedule was less a personal choice than a structural reality of the sport's pay gap for a generation of American stars, and Taurasi's career is one of the clearest examples of just how much overseas basketball actually paid relative to the league that made her famous. She became the WNBA's all-time leading scorer while playing that punishing dual-continent schedule for the better part of two decades, and represented the United States at six separate Olympic Games -- a span long enough to have teammates at the end of her run who were in elementary school when she won her first gold medal in Athens.

Elite three-point shooter with clutch scoring ability and fierce competitiveness

Greatest shooter in WNBA history and most decorated player in basketball

• WNBA Champion 2003(NCAA),2007,2009,2014,2019
• Olympic Gold 2004,2008,2012,2016,2020
• WNBA MVP 2009
• All-time WNBA scoring leader