Diana Taurasi is a force. Her accolades span pages and pages, she's largely considered the greatest of all time in the WNBA, and she's one of the most fun trash-talkers to watch play. Skylar Diggins-Smith, also being a force, a trash talker, and an All-Star guard, seemed like a great fit next to Taurasi on the Phoenix Mercury. "Seemed" is the key word here.
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00:00Skylar Diggins-Smith is a force.
00:03She's a multi-time all-star,
00:05a decorated Olympian,
00:07and known as one of
00:09the first women's basketball players to go
00:11viral when the league was
00:12still growing in the 2010s.
00:14Diana Taurasi is also a force.
00:17She's a GOAT of the sport,
00:19also a decorated Olympian, an MVP,
00:22a double-digit all-star, and a WNBA champion.
00:26So why wouldn't you think to team
00:29these two up if you have the opportunity?
00:31No one has ever said anything bad about placing
00:35an immovable object with
00:36an unstoppable force against one another.
00:41Skylar Diggins-Smith was traded to
00:44the Phoenix Mercury back in 2020.
00:46This teamed her up with
00:48other elite players like
00:49Brittany Greiner and Taurasi.
00:51It felt like a huge momentum shifter in the league,
00:54immediately opening up a contention window for
00:56Phoenix and making a first chip for
00:58SES seem more attainable than ever.
01:01Despite this sort of super team being formed,
01:04they never got to hoist a trophy in
01:07the Diggins-Smith era thanks to
01:09beef and some troubling allegations.
01:12In 2020, the season was shortened to
01:14just 22 games because of COVID. That's nothing.
01:18What made it even shorter was
01:20the fact that the playoff format,
01:22at this point in the league's history,
01:23was single elimination games.
01:27Phoenix got bounced in the second round of
01:30Wubble postseason hoops by the Minnesota Lynx,
01:32and that ended their bittersweet first season with SDS.
01:36In 2021, they ran it back with
01:39their big three and made it to the finals.
01:42But they dropped that series,
01:443-1, to the Candice Parker-led Chicago Sky,
01:47leading to a pretty infamous
01:49post-game press conference from the Mercury.
01:51Infamous because it didn't happen.
01:54They refused to meet with media,
01:55and Taurasi actually punched
01:57a hole-ass door after the loss.
01:59Bummer for that door,
02:01but it made for an awesome prop for Chicago.
02:04Again, they run it back in 2022,
02:07but this time without Greiner,
02:10who was detained in Russia for the entire season.
02:13It was just SDS and Taurasi leading the team,
02:16trying to navigate them back to the finals after
02:19such a bad loss to the Sky the previous year.
02:22And it was new head coach Vanessa Nygaard
02:25looking to coach the superstar backcourt
02:27up to the finals again, and ideally, a championship.
02:32DT and Sky are two players that, on paper,
02:35seem like they'd work extremely well together.
02:38Both guards and table setters for their teams,
02:41it felt like they could probably take the league by storm
02:44despite losing Greiner.
02:46Unfortunately, since both are so good and so competitive,
02:50they were obviously going to get on each other
02:52for mistakes made on the floor
02:54that could cost the team games, and they did.
02:58In one May 2022 game against the Las Vegas Aces,
03:01the backcourt duo had a breakdown defensively
03:04that led to a few buckets for Vegas.
03:06Not the end of the world.
03:07It's literally just the second quarter,
03:09and they weren't really down by much.
03:11Nothing to really be upset about here.
03:14Except both were obviously annoyed at one another
03:18on subsequent plays on defense,
03:20and honestly, both plays seemed pretty bad
03:23on Taurasi's part.
03:25So it made no sense that Taurasi was the one getting upset
03:29with SDS in this game and on these plays.
03:32Should have probably been Skyler getting on DT
03:35for missing the opportunity to help on defense, for example,
03:38or just for her completely misunderstanding
03:41that SDS was hanging back on a transition play
03:44to defend one of Las Vegas' players
03:45that was lingering in the backcourt.
03:48After these blown plays, SDS had enough.
03:52Despite doing the,
03:53"'I'm gonna shake my leg to calm down' routine,"
03:56which, been there, it does not work,
03:59she shot up out of her seat
04:01and got right into Taurasi's face on the sideline.
04:04A very intense scene mid-game.
04:07Nygaard said after the game
04:08that this was a normal thing to happen
04:11between two competitors just trying to win a game.
04:14Things got out of hand, sure,
04:16but don't give them too much flak.
04:18And Nygaard kind of has a point.
04:21This happens all the time in any sport.
04:23Kobe and Shaq, KD and Russ, now SDS and DT.
04:27When you have the best of the best
04:29competing with one another, you get friction,
04:31and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
04:34But Skyler was also having issues with Nygaard in-game,
04:38just like she was with DT.
04:40So, right message, wrong messenger.
04:44In a subsequent game in June 2022
04:47against her old team, the Dallas Wings,
04:49SDS yelled at Nygaard
04:51as he walked off the court at halftime.
04:54She said, fucking bullshit,
04:56as she passed Nygaard to the locker room,
04:58presumably about the bad end to the half.
05:01Nygaard looked confused and asked what SDS said,
05:04so Sky very clearly articulated,
05:07fucking bullshit, to her coach,
05:09who just nodded and kept walking to the locker room.
05:12Another weird incident between these two
05:14came after All-Star announcements were made.
05:17Skyler made the team, DT did not.
05:20Nygaard was asked about this snub, and she was shocked.
05:23She said that there would be no true All-Star game
05:26without Tarassi there.
05:28Cool, cool, except, you know,
05:30you do have a player on your team going, right?
05:33Nygaard did give Skyler her flowers,
05:36but following up with that DT comment
05:38made it feel like she was calling an All-Star game
05:40with no DT, a Mickey Mouse game.
05:43Skyler responded to this comment from Nygaard
05:46very succinctly.
05:48This tweet was since deleted, but screenshots live forever.
05:52To pile onto this already tension-filled locker room,
05:55there was another incident in-game
05:57between Skyler and Nygaard,
05:59where she was seen clapping at and yelling at the sideline
06:01for the coach to take her out of a blowout.
06:05Having a tough time.
06:08She wasn't happy with her performance,
06:10and with the Liberty holding a double-digit lead
06:12by that point, she was ready to get out.
06:15Finally, the season ended for Phoenix,
06:18ending up with a 15-21 record,
06:20good for the eighth seed in the league.
06:22Felt like 2022 lasted a lot longer than 36 games,
06:27a season from hell without Griner,
06:28and a season straight out of a bad drama
06:31with all that was going on between Sky and DT and Nygaard.
06:35Oh, and they'd now have to deal with the aces
06:39in round one of the playoffs, fun.
06:42And SDS actually sat out during this series
06:46and was out for the last four games of the regular season
06:49due to personal reasons.
06:50Without her impact, they were swept in round one
06:53by the eventual champion aces.
06:56So, 2023, the Mercury finally would be getting Griner back
07:01after she was thankfully released back to the US,
07:03and DT would be returning
07:05to keep adding her name to history books.
07:08Diggins-Smith, however, was still away from the team,
07:11but for good reason.
07:12She was recovering from having her second child.
07:15Without her on the floor,
07:17the Mercury started the year out 2-10.
07:19So, they fired Nygaard.
07:23While away, though, Sky crept back into the public eye
07:26to drop some serious allegations against the Mercury
07:29and its handling of her pregnancy.
07:31Skylar claimed that, firstly,
07:33the Mercury wanted nothing to do with her
07:35as she was a free agent after 2023
07:38and not able to play with the team on account of her,
07:41you know, being a new mom.
07:43So, kind of slimy,
07:44but sounds like a typical team playing hardball.
07:48Then she said that Phoenix was not only
07:50not really acknowledging her existence,
07:52they didn't even wish her a happy birthday, for God's sakes,
07:55but they had completely cut her out.
07:58Cut her off from facilities, from trainers,
08:01from chiropractors.
08:02She allegedly couldn't use any of their resources
08:05despite her still being a member of the team.
08:08All because she, let's see, had a child?
08:11That's it.
08:13SDS says she found it odd how Phoenix was okay
08:16with her using the facility
08:18when she was away for personal reasons,
08:19but after she left the team completely,
08:22out of fear of her complications with her pregnancy,
08:24they closed her off from their resources.
08:28This garnered zero investigation from the league,
08:31by the way, which is shocking,
08:32considering they had done that for De'Arica Hamby
08:35and her situation with the Aces.
08:37Maybe more shockingly, though,
08:39the typically outspoken Taurasi
08:41had nothing to say about these allegations.
08:45When approached with the idea of SDS returning
08:47to the Mercury on a new deal in 2024,
08:50BT moved right along.
08:52Do you be open at all to Skylar coming back?
08:56Next question.
08:57You mean to tell me that the Diana Taurasi,
09:00who literally kissed an opponent mid-playoff game
09:03during a scuffle, who then said after the game
09:06she was just, quote,
09:07trying to make sweet love with Simone Augustus,
09:10has nothing to say about an actually serious issue
09:13and allegation made by a former teammate?
09:16That's weird.
09:18After these allegations and after the season was over,
09:21SDS signed with the Seattle Storm,
09:24a direct conference rival.
09:26She formed yet another elite multi-headed monster
09:29with her, Nneka Ogumake, Jewel Lloyd,
09:32and Ezi Magmigor joining forces.
09:35The first clash between the two teams
09:37since SDS's departure was in the preseason in 2024.
09:42It was preseason, so, you know, nothing special,
09:45but at the end of the game, SDS was overheard saying
09:48she was not shaking hands with any Phoenix players,
09:51which her new teammates agreed on,
09:53adding, fuck them, to their huddle.
09:56After that game, SDS said she feels a lot more welcomed
09:59with Seattle and that she was just more so focused
10:02on prospering with her new team.
10:04DT, on the other hand, stayed with the Mercury
10:07and was still their alpha and their veteran leader.
10:10Same old, same old.
10:12Newton's second law says that in order for an immovable
10:16object to really qualify as immovable,
10:19it has to be infinitely large.
10:21Infinite can really aptly describe Diana Taurasi's career,
10:25and Skylar Diggins-Smith became the best test
10:29of immovability that Taurasi has ever seen
10:32and probably will ever see.