Candace Parker, Maya Moore and their legacy in women’s basketball

This weekend was like a touching closing of a monumental chapter in women’s basketball.

Maya Moore-Irons was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame on Saturday. On Sunday, Candace Parker announced she was leaving the WNBA. Parker, who signed a one-year contract with the Las Vegas Aces in February, is leaving the sport a yr after Moore announced she would officially retire from basketball in 2023 after a four-year hiatus from the WNBA.

When you ask modern players, whether college or WNBA, who they emulated and idolized as kids, they almost all the time answer: Parker or Moore. Both are probably your current favorite player’s favorite (if it wasn’t still Parker as of Sunday).

With the departure of Moore and Parker, the WNBA is without two of its most influential and impactful superstars. It’s a reality that is hard for a lot of women’s basketball fans to swallow, especially since excitement for a game that Parker and Moore helped create has never been higher.

With Parker’s departure comes a pervasive void, very like Moore’s, of not with the ability to properly rejoice the tip of two transformative talents. And while we’ll never see Moore or Parker dazzle on the basketball court again, their mark on the sport and the present generation able to catapult women’s basketball into the following chapter are all over the place.

On the sphere, Parker was unlike any player we had ever seen.

After a legendary profession at Tennessee, where she won two national championships and was named national player of the yr twice, Parker began her WNBA profession in 2008 as the primary player to win Rookie of the Year and MVP in the identical season. Parker’s momentous rookie season heralded a legendary profession that included three championships, two MVP awards, seven All-Star nominations, Finals MVP and Defensive Player of the Year. After becoming the primary woman to dunk in an NCAA tournament game, Parker was also the primary to dunk multiple times in a WNBA season.

In Parker style, she ended her 16-year profession just because it began – in a historic moment. Her third championship, won with the Aces last season, made her the primary player in league history to win championships with three different franchises.

Parker, who also won two Olympic gold medals and countless championships overseas, is the one player in WNBA history to rank in the highest 10 in points, rebounds, assists and blocks. Her versatility and dominance at 6’1″ helped usher in a brand new era in women’s basketball and not using a game-changing position.

At age 29, Moore has already won 4 WNBA championships with the Minnesota Lynx, was Finals MVP, league MVP and was a six-time All-Star. This was preceded by a dominant collegiate profession in which she won two national titles and was named national player of the yr twice.

Moore, who also won two Olympic gold medals, two FIBA ​​World Championship gold medals and two EuroLeague titles, was a unprecedented talent on the court. Her playing was graceful and dominant, creative and fierce. Her jump shot was clean and her ability to get a bucket was unmatched. Moore was the primary women’s basketball player to sign a contract with Jordan Brand. When the brand launched a billboard campaign in 2018 in which Moore recreated Jordan’s 1989 “Wings” poster, it appeared like a fitting stamp for the face of women’s basketball. The following season, Moore announced that she wouldn’t play in the 2019 season. Even though Moore’s profession had been decorated as much as that time, it still felt prefer it was just getting began.

The play of each Parker and Moore has energized women’s basketball fans and attracted latest fans. However, their influence begins only on the pitch.

Parker’s influence is wide-ranging. Parker, who had her daughter Lailaa after her rookie season, has all the time advocated for moms who’re skilled athletes, demonstrating the power to thrive in each.

In 2010, Parker became the ninth WNBA player to have her own signature shoes. Since then, she has grow to be the one Black woman to wear the signature shoe in the WNBA.

As an analyst and commentator at TNT, where she has been working since 2018, she became the primary woman to function a game analyst in the course of the NBA All-Star Game in 2023. In 2021, she was the primary woman on the duvet of NBA 2K, and she also co-owns the NWSL team Angel City FC together with her daughter.

Moore’s off-court influence centers on her social activism. In 2016, she took part in an illustration organized by the captains of the Minnesota Lynx team, who wore T-shirts with the words “Change starts with us” in the course of the pre-game press conference after the police shooting of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. Justice and Accountability” and “Black Lives Matter” on the back together with the names Sterling and Castile.

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

In 2019, two years after winning her fourth WNBA championship, Moore left the WNBA to advocate for the discharge of Jonathan Irons, who was sentenced to 50 years in the Missouri State Penitentiary after being convicted of burglary and assault on the age of 16. His conviction was overturned in July 2020. Moore’s sacrifice to assist ultimately free Irons, made at a time when she was widely considered the face of women’s basketball, made her a pioneer in athlete activism and drew significant attention to the failings of the U.S. criminal justice system criminal system and the necessity for reforms.

Parker and Moore left a mark on the game that may likely not be fully realized for years. It’s a shame they will not give you the option to be a part of the momentous wave the game is currently experiencing. However, much of their legacy is reflected directly in the sport’s latest generation of stars, lots of whom have been inspired by Moore and Parker.

Ace forward A’ja Wilson, the reigning WNBA Finals MVP, and Indiana Fever center Aliyah Boston, the league’s 2023 Rookie of the Year, called Parker their GOAT. Caitlin Clark, who’s entering her highly anticipated debut season in the WNBA after retiring from her college profession because the all-time leading scorer in NCAA basketball history, reiterates that Moore was her childhood basketball hero.

This is the life cycle of the sports avant-garde. While we may never give you the option to observe them ceaselessly or resolve when their on-court careers will end, we will still enjoy watching their legacy live.