In honor of Diana Taurasi announcing her retirement, I’m unlocking this post about DT’s love language: trash talking (I’ll have a full rundown of the bests memes and retrospectives this weekend).
I have an op-ed up at CNN today [ed. note: April 2024] about why women’s sports should have more shit talking, not less. I pitched this as “let women be haters” and I had a lot of fun recounting the best WNBA rivalries in recent memory, specifically Kahleah Copper vs. Sophie Cunningham (the shirts!) and the Sky trolling Diana Taurasi with the broken locker room door.
Sports are entertainment and it’s always more enjoyable when there’s conflict involved; after all, tension is what defines a good story. I don’t want to see less trash talking, I want to see more. I don’t want to see women pressured to be polite or likable, I want them to be allowed to be assholes. Let women athletes be haters — sports needs more of them.
Now let’s do a little sports astrology and then, since the women’s basketball news cycle is moving so quickly right now, we’ll do a few quick hits of commentary on the hottest stories of the past few days (and I’ll share a rejected pitch I sent back in 2020 next to the coverage of the WNBA draft from this week).
As I noted in my CNN piece, Taurasi is known for her mouth. It’s like the one thing fans know about Taurasi, aside from the fact that she has made a lot of great shots over the course of her career. There’s even a t-shirt of Taurasi infamously heckling a ref whose call she didn’t like.
Seerat Sohi called her “a shit-eating grin motherfucker” on Twitter and that truly sums up Taurasi’s essence. And that, to me, is also the key point here: the grin. described talking trash as Taurasi’s “love language” and I have to agree. Take one look at her birth chart and you can see it pretty clearly.
Diana Taurasi is a Gemini sun and Mercury with a moon in Aquarius and her Mars in Libra. That chart is littered with air signs and there’s not much an air sign likes to do more than… blow hot air. Mercury rules communication and a Gemini Mercury loves to talk, to chat, to get under your skin. An Aquarius moon is going to love banter and is going to view roasting someone as a way of flirting or expressing affection—if they don’t care about someone or something, it’s not worth the effort of making jokes about. And then the Mars in Libra (with Mars being the planet ruling action, conflict, and sports) is going to be very concerned with justice and fairness and will also not shut up about any of it—especially with the rest of those air placements sitting around it.
All of that is to say: Taurasi talks trash because it is fun. It’s how she approaches the world, both from a competitive standpoint and from a relational standpoint. She roasts because she loves. She often does it with her tongue planted firmly in her cheek. She does it as a sign of respect, because she sees you as a worthy competitor. It is and always has been a key part of her game and her personality.
Moving on:
You know who else is a Taurus? Dawn Staley. “I feel like all centers should be earth signs,” Marisa continued, noting that Cameron Brink is a Capricorn (I did more of the astrology of Brink and other March Madness stars here).
Now some quick-hit commentary
No, you don’t make more than Caitlin Clark
Yes, Caitlin Clark’s rookie salary is $76,000. I’m glad everyone is outraged, thanks for being here. Where was this outrage when Brittney Griner was a political prisoner in Russia? Did folks think she was over there playing for fun? If you’re curious as to why WNBA salaries are what they are, read this great explainer on how the CBA works. Chicago Sky player Brianna Turner added some context on X, as well. “My 2019 rookie salary was $44,207,” she said. “Appreciative that rookies this year are making significantly more than I did and I’m hopeful that rookies 5 years from now are making significantly more than rookies today.”
“I’m already annoyed by this conversation because for years, WNBA players have fought for more money,” Jemele Hill said on X. “And when they were outspoken, so many of y’all told them to shut up or reminded them how they had no value.”
But back to Clark. The framing of her as a near-poverty level athlete is laughable. If you were one of the 2.45 million people who watched the draft Monday night, you would have seen her in three commercials in the span of like two minutes. And less than a day after the “Caitlin Clark is making poverty wages” conversation reached its crescendo came this announcement:
Yes, you read that right. EIGHT FIGURES. So no, most of you don’t make more than Caitlin Clark. Also not lost on me is that the only three WNBA players to currently have a signature shoe—Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu, and now Clark—are all white, in a league that is nearly 80% Black. Those three players deserve their shoes, don’t get me wrong, but so does A’ja Wilson. Wilson is a two-time WNBA Champion, two-time WNBA MVP, Finals MVP, two-time Defensive Player of the Year, Olympic Gold Medalist, and now New York Times Bestselling author. Wilson is signed to Nike; if they don’t give her a shoe soon, she should leave and let someone else do it.
Dudes covering women’s sports are going to have to adapt now that there are more eyes on them and I don’t think they’re ready for that
If you were lucky enough to avoid having to see the very cringy exchange between Caitlin Clark and Indy Star columnist Gregg Doyel, consider yourself lucky. It went viral yesterday and sparked outrage for being creepy. He wrote an “apology” column that was very “aw, shucks” and tbh I wouldn’t blame the Fever if they revoked his media credentials. I’ll have more to say on this next week when I publish an interview with Dr. Nef Walker, who researches organizational exclusion and culture in sport. But for now, I appreciated this take from Clinton Yates:
I’m so glad the WNBA players no longer have to wear business casual looks to the draft and they’re allowed to be the fashion icons they deserve to be, which is something I’ve been trying to highlight for years! I wrote this op-ed for the New York Times back in 2019 (here’s a gift link) and I’ve been trying to pitch draft fashion stories for four years now.
A pitch of mine from 2020:
The media following the 2024 WNBA Draft:
This is all great! As I wrote on Sunday, so many women’s publications and other media outlets are finally covering women’s sports. But I think what’s frustrating for me is that I feel like I’m getting left behind or left out of the space I’ve spent a decade trying to carve out. Instead of my inbox blowing up with assignments, writers who don’t have the background on the beat are being given the stories.
I am very much a believer that a rising tide lifts all boats and that coverage begets coverage, but it still feels frustrating to have spent my entire career waiting for the culture to catch up with my work and then, when it finally does, still not really getting a seat at the table to cover it.
ANYWAY, I will stop bitching about this soon I promise. lol who am I kidding no I won’t.
