5 takeaways from Phoenix WNBA legend Diana Taurasi’s Amazon series

Diana Taurasi sank countless 3-pointers and executed a bevvy of trick passes during her legendary career with the Phoenix Mercury. But perhaps most impressive was how Taurasi managed to be so relatable and popular while also remaining so private.

In the Valley and around the world, women’s basketball fans felt like they knew Taurasi when they did not. Amazon Prime Video’s three-part documentary series “Taurasi” could start to change that.

The doc, which debuted last week, is full of surprises about Taurasi. It reveals secrets and adds more depth to the biggest moments that defined the three-time WNBA champion and six-time Olympic gold medalist. It provides a fuller picture of a legend, showing us who she was as a daughter, an athlete, a wife, a mother and a leader.

The series is available to stream right now. Here are five revelations you can expect to encounter.

Taurasi and her family were robbed during her childhood in Argentina

If you caught Taurasi in a press conference during her playing career in the Valley, you were bound to hear her answer a question in Spanish. That didn’t come from telenovelas around the house or overtime studying on Duolingo. Taurasi was raised by Argentinian and Italian immigrants in Southern California.

When she was in middle school, Taurasi spent about a year in Argentina with her family. While there, she was restricted from playing competitive basketball and grew frustrated. Her desire to return home was strengthened by a scary incident.

In the first episode of the series, Taurasi recounts how after dinner one night in the country, men came out of the family’s home and pointed guns at her and her sister, Jessika. One man beat their father atop the car. “I thought we were going to die,” Taurasi says in the doc. Their home was emptied.

The Taurasis then returned to Chino, California, where Diana blossomed as a high school basketball star and began earning scholarship offers from top schools around the country.

Taurasi traveled with the owner of her Russian team days before his murder

After winning three NCAA titles at UConn and entering the pros, Taurasi followed the example of many WNBA stars and headed overseas to compete during the WNBA offseason. Back then, the real money for female hoopers was found in countries like Russia, China and Turkey.

In her second season in Russia, Taurasi joined Spartak Moscow. There, she struck up a friendship with owner Shabtai Kalmanovich, an Israeli former KGB spy turned event promoter. Kalmanovich treated the team like royalty and developed close relationships with many of his players.

After her second WNBA championship in 2009, Taurasi returned to Moscow exhausted. Kalmanovich took her to Tel Aviv with his family to recuperate before her next season. When they returned, Kalmanovich arranged for Taurasi and her teammates to attend a Beyoncé concert.

But when Taurasi arrived at the office of the man she considered a second father, she learned he had been shot dead in his private car by vigilantes.

Despite financial uncertainties after Kalmanovich’s killing, Taurasi and all her teammates returned to Spartak. They banded together to win another Euroleague title.

“I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” Taurasi says of her time at Spartak.

The beginning of Taurasi’s romance with teammate Penny Taylor

The documentary shares new details about how Taurasi and then-teammate Penny Taylor fell in love. The romance wasn’t without its obstacles.

Taylor married Italian professional volleyball player Rodrigo Rodrigues Gil in 2005, the year after she came to Phoenix alongside Taurasi. But when Taylor developed feelings for Taurasi, it meant ending her marriage.

“I’d never not been loyal to someone,” Taylor says. “It wasn’t, like, a great moment for me. I’m not the type of person who can lie. I can’t fake things. I had a lot of guilt in hurting someone, but I did know my own feelings and I had to follow them.”

Taurasi and Taylor married in 2017. They now have a 7-year-old son and a 3-year-old daughter.

Taurasi was unbothered by the reaction to her Caitlin Clark comments

During an appearance on “SportsCenter” during the NCAA Final Four in 2024, Taurasi stated that “reality” was going to set in for Iowa star Caitlin Clark when she entered the pros. As with most comments about Clark in recent years, Taurasi’s went viral. Fans accused Taurasi of being a hater, while Taurasi later clarified that she was simply interested to see how Clark’s game translated.

From Taurasi’s standpoint, the incident was hardly consequential. “I don’t give a fuck what Twitter accounts have to say,” she says late in the doc. When Clark appeared on Taurasi’s alternative broadcast of the Final Four this past year, Taurasi joked that reality is now setting in for her in retirement.

The sharper Clark-related response came when Taurasi addressed Clark being left off the Team USA roster for the 2024 Olympics in Paris. Taurasi barely played during the Olympics – and didn’t see the court at all in Team USA’s gold-medal win over France. In the doc, she says she never considered that Clark would take her spot because Team USA has been her team “for the past 20 years.”

Taurasi hated riding the bench during her sixth Olympics

While Taurasi took on a smaller role in her sixth Olympics, she says it drove her crazy to ride the pine while the Americans nearly coughed up a gold medal. A one-point win over France secured a sixth gold medal for the Mercury star, but Taurasi is still confused about how the tournament played out in Paris.

In the doc, longtime friend and teammate Sue Bird agrees.

“She should have played,” Bird says. “Hundred percent.”

Taurasi reveals in the doc that the USA Basketball staff did not inform her about her diminished role or communicate the reasoning. It made her feel as if she did not earn the medal, that the final gold did not “fit” her legacy.

However, the presence of Taurasi’s family – who had been barred from accompanying her to the last Olympics in Tokyo, which was held during the pandemic – made it an easier pill to swallow. She celebrated with them postgame and forgot about playing time and any other grievances.

Her six gold medals, won over a 20-year span, are considered by many to be Taurasi’s most impressive accomplishment.