Diana Taurasi Says She Wants a Stake in Mercury Ownership Within Two Years

Diana Taurasi isn't done with the Phoenix Mercury. She just wants a different title.

The WNBA's all-time leading scorer told ESPN's Josh Weinfuss on Friday that she hopes to join the Mercury's ownership group within the next year or two. Her comments came two days before the franchise retires her No. 3 jersey and inducts her into the team's Ring of Honor on Sunday, when Phoenix hosts the Portland Fire.

"Ownership is always something that's always been on my mind," Taurasi said. "So, thankfully, I'm in a great place where it hopefully can evolve into something. But, I don't want to just do it and not be around. When I do it, I want to be around because I want to have an influence on where this franchise goes. And obviously being in Phoenix would be the goal."

Mat Ishbia holds a controlling interest in both the Mercury and the Phoenix Suns after his roughly $4 billion purchase of the organizations in 2023, according to Bleacher Report. Any path for Taurasi to join the ownership group would run through Ishbia's group, and neither side has laid out specific terms or a timeline beyond Taurasi's own "next year or two" comment.

A Retirement Tour With a Twist

Taurasi's comments capped a week built around her legacy. On Thursday the city of Phoenix unveiled an updated street sign outside the Mortgage Matchup Center reading "10646 Taurasi Way," marking her career scoring total, according to Newsweek and TSN. It's the second such honor for that address. Back in June 2017, the city had already renamed the street to mark Taurasi becoming the league's all-time leading scorer, at 7,489 points at the time, per TSN.

On Friday, Taurasi took part in a ribbon-cutting for one of three refurbished outdoor courts, this one repainted purple and renamed Diana Taurasi Court, featuring a logo combining her No. 3 with a goat, shorthand for "greatest of all time," according to TSN and Bleacher Report.

Sunday's ceremony will retire her jersey and enter her into the Mercury's Ring of Honor at halftime of the Portland Fire game, followed by a postgame ceremony, TSN reported.

Taurasi's basketball resume is not in dispute. She played all 20 of her WNBA seasons in Phoenix, won three WNBA championships, made 11 All-Star teams and 14 All-WNBA teams, and won six Olympic gold medals, according to Bleacher Report. She retired in February 2025.

Why She Stayed

Taurasi told ESPN that leaving Phoenix crossed her mind more than once, particularly during stretches when the Mercury weren't contending. "There was a couple breaking points along the way," she said. "My first 10 years you win three championships and you think, well, I mean, we're going to win three more. As an athlete, as a competitor, that's your mindset."

She described the lean years as formative rather than wasted. "I think that's the beauty also of what the times were like," Taurasi said. "You had to be there through the ups and the downs, and it made the ups so much sweeter. But yeah, there were times where I'm like, 'Boy, I think the writing's on the wall. I might need a new start. The franchise might need a new start,' but we always kind of figured it out."

Every outlet in this cycle, including Newsweek, TSN, and Bleacher Report, sourced the ownership comments to the same Friday conversation with ESPN's Josh Weinfuss. None of them report that Ishbia's group has made an offer, set terms, or committed to a timeline. This is Taurasi stating a personal goal, not an announced transaction. Smaller outlets picking up the wire item, including affiliate sites under the ESPN Radio network in La Crosse, Nashville, and Wilmington, ran only a stripped-down two-sentence version of the story without the additional context on the court dedications or her comments about nearly leaving Phoenix, so readers relying on those feeds would miss most of the substance behind the ownership remarks.

There's also no public reporting on what an ownership stake would cost Taurasi, what percentage might be available, or whether other former players or investors are in the mix. Ishbia's Mercury and Suns purchase, at roughly $4 billion, sets a scale for how expensive any equity stake in the franchise would likely be, but nothing in current reporting quantifies what a Taurasi share might look like.

The concrete next step is Sunday's ceremony itself, when the Mercury host the Portland Fire and formally retire Taurasi's number. Whether her ownership ambitions turn into an actual deal with Ishbia's group over the next one to two years remains an open question that neither the team nor Taurasi has answered with specifics.