How ‘Taurasi’ series director got the famously camera-shy GOAT to open up

MARK BRODIE: In honor of the WNBA’s 25th anniversary season in 2021, the league asked fans to name the GOAT — the greatest of all time. The winner, Diana Taurasi of the Phoenix Mercury. For a lot of fans and watchers of women’s basketball, the honor wasn’t much of a surprise.

[CLIPS OF MULTIPLE PEOPLE TALKING]

“She’s the best to ever do it, ever.’

“She was like, ‘I’m just gonna win no matter what it takes.’

“The biggest moments are her best moments.”

“That’s D’s superpower.”

That’s from the trailer for a new three part series called “Taurasi.” It’s currently streaming on Prime Video. By way of a quick recap, Taurasi played 20 seasons in the WNBA, all of them in Phoenix. She retired as the league’s all-time leading scorer. She was the top overall pick in the 2004 draft after winning three straight NCAA titles at UConn.

She has won WNBA championships, Olympic gold medals, MVPs and a bunch of other titles and awards — but the series doesn’t necessarily focus on all of that. Katie Bender Wynn, a filmmaker and (the documentary’s) director, says she wanted to tell a more character driven story.

KATIE BENDER WYNN: I hadn’t heard of Diana Taurasi before, actually. Growing up as an athlete in Australia, the WNBA wasn’t on our screens, so I didn’t really know a lot about her. And I did some Googling, and obviously her Wikipedia page is so long, you know, full of accolades. But then there’s obviously some interesting points that came up.

One of them, obviously, she’d been known to be villainized, and another one was that she was a sh-t talker. And so for someone who wasn’t aware of this world, I didn’t really understand the meaning behind it. I thought it was interesting. I was, as a filmmaker, very fascinated by that and wanted to understand the meaning of why she was being labeled that. Which I think, once you get to know Diana, there are, I think, misconceptions and misunderstandings about her career.

BRODIE: One of the other things that a lot of people will say about Diana Tausi is that she is kind of famously camera shy. Like she doesn’t love talking, especially about herself. I wonder if it was kind of a tough sell to get her to agree to do this.

BENDER WYNN: Yeah, I mean, look, I think, you know, she obviously was already willing to do this project before it had come to me. So, I think for her it was about finding the right director. And I think she was ready to open up. But it obviously was just going to take the right person.

BRODIE: She has had, as you referenced, such a decorated career — from high school to college to the WNBA to the Olympics, to playing overseas. When you talked to her, what did she have to say about sort of the totality of her career and I guess all the winning and success that she had during it?

BENDER WYNN: You know, that’s an interesting question, because I would say the way that I began this process with her was not talking about all the accolades. Because she’s won the accolades, and they’re written on paper. And it’s like, she’s not really one to just sit down and talk about the highlights.

And that was one of the things she said to me. She didn’t want this to be a highlights reel. The part that I really had to dig deep to get from her was all the moments that we don’t see in the highlights, that we don’t see in those media interviews after a game or at the Olympics. And that was like, what happens behind the scenes? What happens in those low moments? How did that affect her? How did she feel?

BRODIE: How similar or dissimilar is the Diana Taurasi off the court to the Diana Taurasi that so many of us have seen on the court?

BENDER WYNN: I laugh at that because obviously when I saw some of these videos of her screaming at refs and getting pissed off, I was naturally terrified. But when I was with her, it was all laughs. We got along great. And I think getting to know her as a person first as opposed to having this preconception of her career over the last 20 years, I think that helped.

I think that did help a lot, because I just got to know the other side of her.

BRODIE: Did she talk about pressure in terms of needing to be the best or feeling like others were depending on her or her teammates were depending on her? Like, I would just think that if you are labeled the greatest of all time in anything, that’s gotta come with some expectations and some amount of pressure, right?

BENDER WYNN: Yeah. Look, I think in her closing statements in episode three, in the very end, she says that she’s ready to not fight anymore. There’s always been this inner fight in her mind.

And what she means by that is the pressure of leading a team, the pressure of winning. All those things that she has held as one of the greats, she was ready to let go of that. And I found that line really, really powerful.

BRODIE: Did she say what led her to that? Like, what led her to sort of be ready to let go?

BENDER WYNN: You know, it’s funny. I mean, obviously she was 42, and playing the way she is playing is, you know, you’re at the end of your basketball career. That’s when your body’s starting to slow down. And for her, I think that she had come to a place in her mind where she was ready to have coffee with her wife and take her kids to preschool.

She didn’t want to be traveling and leaving her family. I think she was ready for a long time. It was just more about, like, at what point was the right time for her. And I do wonder if she was waiting out to go to that sixth Olympics.

BRODIE: How does she look at her time in the wnba, especially because it ended at such an interesting time when the league was — it had been popular with her in it, obviously. But it really seemed to take off to a new level with Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese and now Paige Bueckers coming up. I wonder what she had to say about her role sort of helping build up the WNBA and then leaving it seemingly as it’s almost going to another level.

BENDER WYNN: I mean, that’s crazy. It’s almost poetic in a way. I think what a lot of people don’t understand, which I hope this doc is the vehicle for other people to now know that if it wasn’t for Diana carrying the league through a really rough time, there probably wouldn’t be a league right now.

And she truly is a game changer. And all the sacrifices that she took in those years where the league was shaky is, you know, why we are where we are today.

BRODIE: After having gotten to know her like you have and talking to her as much as you did, what do you think is Diana Taurasi’s legacy — not just in the WNBA, but in women’s basketball broadly and maybe even in women’s sports more broadly than that?

BENDER WYNN: Yeah. I think that a big part of Diana’s legacy is that we grew up in a generation in women’s sports where everyone just tried to fit the mold. We grew up in a generation where society wanted or expected female athletes to look and act a certain way. And Diana didn’t fit that mold, but she didn’t conform to that mold.

And that’s why I admire her so much. Because especially in a world now where society and athletes are like craving authenticity. And the way we’re marketing things now is to be true to yourself. She was that her entire career. And I think in that generation not a lot of female athletes were doing that, because they were just saying yes to anything that came along just to try to get their name out there, because that’s what you did, right?

But she was OK with saying no because at the end of the day, she was the best baller in the world, and she knew her worth. And so the power of no I think now resonates so powerfully. And I think that you’re educated with that part of her story after watching this doc.

And I hope that — and I know that actually — some of the current athletes in the WNBA are already thanking her for doing that and are recognizing that. So I think that’s a big part of her legacy.