Candace Parker and Maya Moore and their living legacies in women’s basketball

The great legacy left by Candace Parker and Maya Moore will continue to be felt in the WNBA well into their retirement.

Last weekend felt like an emotional end to a monumental chapter in women’s basketball.

eight days ago, Maya Moore Irons She was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. last Sunday, Candace Parker She announced that she has retired from the WNBA. Parker, who signed a one-year contract with the Las Vegas Aces in February, left the game a year after Moore announced her official retirement from basketball in 2023 after a four-season hiatus from the WNBA.

When you ask players today, whether college or WNBA, who they grew up emulating and idolizing as kids, they almost always say Parker or Moore. Both would likely be your current favorite player (if Parker wasn’t already there a week ago).

With the retirements of Moore and Parker, the WNBA is now without two of its most influential and influential stars. It’s a reality that many women’s basketball fans have a hard time swallowing, especially since enthusiasm for the game, which Parker and Moore helped establish, has never been brighter.

With Parker’s departure comes a widespread void, as with Moore, with an inability to properly celebrate the closing of two transformative talents. But while we won’t see Moore or Parker dazzling on the basketball court again, their mark on the game and the current generation poised to propel women’s basketball into its next chapter is everywhere.

On the field, Parker was unlike any player we’ve ever seen.

After a legendary career at Tennessee, where she won two national championships and was named National Player of the Year twice, Parker began her WNBA career in 2008 as the first player to win Player of the Year and MVP awards. Parker’s breakout rookie season ushered in a legendary career that included three championships, two MVP awards, seven All-Star nominations, a Finals MVP, and Defensive Player of the Year. After becoming the first woman to dunk in the NCAA Tournament, Parker was also the first to do so multiple times in a WNBA season.

In true Parker fashion, he ended his 16-season career as he began: on a historic note. Her third championship, with the Ace last season, made her the first player in league history to win a championship with three different franchises.

Parker, who also won two Olympic gold medals and countless outdoor titles, is the only player in WNBA history to rank in the top 10 in points, rebounds, assists and blocks. Her versatility and dominance at 6-foot-4 helped usher in a new era of positionless bigs in women’s basketball that changed the game.

At 29, Moore has already won four WNBA championships with the Minnesota Lynx, a Finals Most Valuable Player Award, a league MVP, and has been a six-time All-Star. This was preceded by a dominant college career in which she won two national titles and was named National Player of the Year twice.

Moore, who also won two Olympic gold medals, two FIBA ​​World Championship golds and two EuroLeague titles, was a transcendent talent on the court. His game was elegant, dominant, innovative and engaging. His jump shot was immaculate and his shooting ability was unparalleled. Moore was the first female basketball player to sign with Jordan Brand. In 2018, when the brand launched an ad campaign in which Moore recreated Jordan’s 1989 “Wings” poster, it seemed like a fitting stamp for the face of women’s basketball. The following season, Moore announced that he would sit out the 2019 season. Even though Moore’s career had been up to that point, he still felt like he was just getting started.

The play of Parker and Moore ignited women’s basketball fans and attracted new fans. But his impact only begins on the field.

Parker’s influence is far-reaching. Parker, who gave birth to daughter Layla after her rookie season, has always been an advocate for professional athlete mothers, and has shown the ability to thrive in both situations.

In 2010, Parker became the ninth WNBA player to have her own signature shoe. She is the only Black woman to have a signature shoe in the WNBA since.

An analyst and commentator at TNT, where she has worked since 2018, she became the first woman to serve as a game analyst for the NBA All-Star Game in 2023. In 2021, she was the first female athlete on the cover of the NBA. 2K is also co-owner of NWSL team Angel City FC with her daughter.

Moore’s influence off the court is centered on his social activism. In 2016, she was part of a rally organized by Minnesota Lynx leaders who, after the police shooting deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, wore T-shirts to a pregame press conference that read on the front, “Change starts with us.” “Justice and Accountability” and “Black Lives Matter.” “Mission” on the back of the photo along with the names Sterling and Castile.

“If we take this time to see that this is a human issue and talk together, we can dramatically reduce fear and create change,” Moore said in 2016.

In 2019, two years after winning her fourth WNBA championship, Moore left the NBA to demand the release of Jonathan Irons, who was sentenced to 50 years in a Missouri state prison after being convicted of robbery and assault at the age of 16. Her conviction was overturned in July 2020. Moore’s sacrifice to help irons’ eventual release, made while she was widely considered the face of women’s basketball, established her as a trailblazer for sports activism and brought significant attention to the flaws of the American criminal justice system and the need for reform. .

Parker and Moore left a mark on the sport, the magnitude of which will likely not be fully understood for years. It’s a shame they can’t be part of the big wave the sport is currently experiencing. But much of their legacy is directly reflected in the game’s next generation of stars, many of whom Moore and Parker have drawn inspiration from.

Aces forward A’ja Wilson, a WNBA Finals MVP winner, and Indiana Fever center Aliyah Boston, the league’s Rookie of the Year in 2023, called Parker “the GOAT.” Kaitlin Clark, who enters her highly anticipated rookie season in the WNBA after finishing her college career as the all-time leading scorer in NCAA basketball history, reiterated how Moore was her childhood basketball hero.

This is the issue of the life cycle of avant-garde sports. Although we may never be able to see them forever or determine when their careers on the field end, we can still find joy in seeing their legacy live on.